Show Rating:

The Holyrood Tavern consolidates its reputation for providing shows at the bizarre end of the Fringe spectrum with this ramshackle stand-up show featuring Danny Worthington and Johnny Sorrow.

In automotive terms, most productions aspire to be a gleaming stretch limo. This one is an equivalent of the Beverly Hillbillies' car or Del Boy's three-wheeler on a bad day.

Held together by the slender conceit that a newspaper small ad - Desperately Seeking Sorrow - brought them together, the two stand-ups each perform two sets separately.

Worthington's first set is an apparently true routine about coming out as gay. There is a well-written and interesting routine hidden in here trying to get out but frustrated by a nervous and unselfconfident delivery which scuppers the performance with odd pauses in mid-sentence and occasional complete forgetfulness of the script.

His second set was not as good.

A standard stand-up routine, it showed glimpses of surrealism in which he plays badminton with live budgies and in which his mother gives the name Shep not just to their dog but to the chair, table and much else. Worthington has potential, but he will have to suffer hostile audiences, walkouts and much heartache for at least two more years to get there. I hope he perseveres.

Johnny 'Showaddywaddy' Sorrow, on the other hand, gives a very self-assured character performance as a comic allegedly once big in West Midlands showbiz but now reduced to professional life as a cobbler. You can't dislike any act which includes the self-critical word cobblers and has a song whose lyrics solely comprise the names of Crossroads Motel characters.

This show deserves two stars or possibly one. It gets three for its sheer ramshackle perversity. It will never play the Palladium, but it is one for comedy connoisseurs and is in the true spirit of the Fringe: My old pal Malcolm Hardee would have loved it. If you went to Oxbridge and buy Bang & Olufsen stereo systems, avoid it like the plague. For lovers of the bizarre, though, it is an event to savour.