Review by Dean Love

Roper is another performer at the Free Fringe but I certainly wouldn't have felt cheated had he been charging for his show, in fact Roper brings with him an air of professionalism and experience missing from many similar free shows.

Roper begins with a few jokes about the venue: The Jekyll and Hyde isn't the most traditional of performance spaces, and moves on to some well chosen remarks on the difficulties face by a foreigner on Scottish soil, raising an interesting question: why don't Boot's sell boots?

We're treated to some observational material on varied topics, such as Olympic swimming, the names of rugby teams, the differences between words ending in '-ist' and '-ian' and anal leakage. The delivery is impeccable and Roper does a great job of weaving references and callbacks into his material making it feel like truly cohesive whole. He also has some very cleverly constructed pull back and reveal gags, and even a few really great puns.

At just 35 minutes it's a very slight show which doesn't do anything particularly special, but then neither are many shows costing nearly a tenner.

Dean Love

Review date: 1 Jan 2006
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett