Original Review:

Show Rating:

There aren't many comedians who you'd want to be stuck in a confined space with for an hour - which is why you might approach Alfie Joey's red Ford Escort with trepidation.

Certainly registering your car as an official Fringe venue is a brilliant idea - garnering coveted media attention and almost guaranteeing 'sold out' signs for every performance.

But it could also be quite intense with the wrong comic. In a theatre, bored punters can always melt into the darknessbut that's a hell of a lot harder when you're sat less than 2ft from the performer in an exposed Edinburgh side street.

Luckily, then, that Alfie Joey is one of the nicest blokes you could hope to meet - chatty, open and friendly, radiating the sort of bonhomie that just cannot be faked.

In fact, he's so nice that even Anne Robinson was pleasant to him. How do I know? Because he told us the anecdote during the show, which is, with suitably intimacy, all about him.

Thankfully, he's had an interesting life. Brought up in a working men's club and trained as a priest (bizarrely, alongside Big Brother's naughty nun Anna Nolan), he's had a string of oddball jobs, from impersonating Stan Laurel to demonstrating toys at Harrod's.

Revealing any more would spoil the experience, since the show takes the form of a quiz, the four punters vying to win the prize key ring by correctly answering questions about Joey's colourful past.

Were this to be performed in one of the Fringe's more conventional spaces, it's probably fair to say it's too slight to amount to much.

But this is not a standard show in a traditional venue, but a bloke in a car talking about himself, pausing only to pour his guests a coffee from the Thermos in a boot. And as an all-round experience, it's as brilliantly enjoyable as it is unique, providing a quintessentially Edinburgh tale to tell your friends.