Show Rating:

With Lips, Chris Kirby make an imaginative attempt to achieve something different with ventriloquism, using the much-derided art to create an atmospheric piece of theatre.

However, despite its Fringe listing, this ambitious one-man show barely qualifies as a comedy.

A strong performance piece, it plays with ideas of the schizophrenia that lies at the heart of a man talking to himself, and the essentially sinister nature of the dummy.

These are not original thoughts - the surreally evil puppets evoke memories of particularly camp episodes of The Avengers - but here they are well-integrated with the theme of selling your soul for stardom.

Insanity, incest and infernal damnation all play their part as the ventriloquist at the heart of this absorbing story struggles with his identity. There are some disturbing scenes - a man having sex with a dummy is especially incongruous - and one piece of astounding stage tricky in this exceedingly well-executed piece.

But although there are moments of dark humour, and a couple of good gags, it should certainly not be classed as comedy, but rather a fine example of one-man theatre.