Bouncing on stage with a declaration that he's always wanted to play the smallest gig at the Festival, Luke Toulson is quick to establish a rapport with his small but perfectly formed audience in this compact, if somewhat sweaty room at the Pleasance.
Discussing his life as a failure, he has some interesting stuff to say on dyslexia and hoodied youths, whilst sneakily trying to chat up a couple of audience members. There's a bit of darker stuff in there too, with this year's obligatory cellar gags (as it were), some fairly average Ryanair-bashing, and material on gay rape which eventually turned out to be anti-homophobia though it initially seemed the joke might end up heading the other way.
An attempt to have a bit of fun with the locals in the room fell flat, as his offer to do a better Scottish accent than the natives found no willing victims and he had to rely on the lighting technician to engage him in competition. This coupled with a strange middle section where he basically just chats to the audience about any good shows that they've seen, and a rather lame ending about how the Festival got started with a clown in a London pub left the show a bit flatter than it deserved to be after a promising start.
However, he's got a lot of good material in there and as a former supply teacher, he certainly knows his crowd control which is always half the battle. With a bit of tidying up, Luke Toulsen certainly has the potential to do well in this game, and it's worth catching his show.
