COMEDY REVIEW SUNDAY NIGHT LAUGH IN.

Byline: JONATHAN TREW

The Stand, Edinburgh, Sun Jun 21 ****

AS Frank Carson endlessly pointed out, the way you tell 'em often matters more than the material itself when it comes to being funny.

Carson's advice sprung to mind while watching Jim Park, one of half a dozen acts at this Sunday night package show.

Jim has a neat line in oddball oneliners but cunningly manages to deliver each and every one of them absolutely stillborn. Deadpan just doesn't do him justice.

Presented with more vim, verve and structure, or possibly by someone else, his surreal gags could slay an audience.

Instead, he left this one looking confused and slightly embarrassed for him.

Cruelly, the more Jim died on stage, the funnier I found his act, to the point where I began to wonder if he was deliberately sabotaging his own set. I laughed until I cried but I suspect that it was for all the wrong reasons.

Bouncing off the walls and into the audience's collective face, there was no chance of headliner Phil Nichol's set lacking energy.

A kind of greatest hits collection from his 20 or so years spent on the stage, his set was like being strapped in next to a lunatic monkey on a wonky rollercoaster.

From meeting dwarves dressed as Hitler in Amsterdam sex clubs via screaming matches with his girlfriend, Phil's comedy is all about a life lived at 100mph and then regurgitating it to the audience at twice that speed.

Factor in a range of comedy accents, manic gurning and enough clowning to fill three big tops and Phil gives the impression that he could find the funny in a diagnosis of lung cancer.

Is his material comedy gold? Perhaps not but the way he tells 'em is.

JONATHAN TREW

CAPTION(S):

WAY HE TELLS 'EM: Phil Nichol