At this preview performance, Dodekahedron was a three-star show, but, with a bit of pruning and watering in the right spots, there could be a four-er in this one. Of the 12 solo sketches he performs, running to about 70 minutes, he could easily lose three of the weaker candidates and a few unnecessary codas, and leave himself with a pretty meaty hour.

Fans of range won’t exactly be enthralled by breadth of the sketches on show. The two that work best both play on the absurdity of sex, and there are no less than four characters who are either actors or drama school tutors – Hall isn’t the first or last character comic unable to resist lampooning their own trade, never mind that the audience can’t relate to it.

But Hall’s performance skills lift him out of these holes. Philippe the randy Spanish cyclist who works in Halfords may be an update on the Fast Show’s Swiss Tony, but you should see what he can do with a bike. Good god. Hall’s joy in playing this character is evident and infectious. And the health and safety officer who seems to think he’s in a porn film is the sort of thing you could imagine Greg Proops doing on Whose Line Is It Anyway? And Hall’s rendition would be equal to it. His short but sweet personification of a chair is a memorable snippet of originality, too.

It seems the best bits of Dodekahedron happen when Hall is having fun. Aside from Phillippe, the sketch about pompous drama guru Liam St John is a case in point. There’s a bit of huffing and puffing to moderate comic effect, up until the point where he gets an audience member onstage, from which point he gleefully cranks up the silliness, and the whole thing lights up.

Meanwhile, there’s a consumer affairs champion who mistakes real life (eg selling sweets in the cinema) for scams – an idea that has promise as yet unfulfilled; and a spoof of a spy author that treads water up until a killer pay-off line. The skit involving a jaded velociraptor who’s appeared in the Jurassic Park films might only work if you’ve seen the latest instalment, and shouldn’t make the final cut.

So by the time you see it it should’ve had the trim it needs – which leaves it as a pretty juicy prospect.

Review date: 8 Aug 2015
Reviewed by: Paul Fleckney
Reviewed at: Underbelly George Square