Would Like to Meet highlights in its description its daily change of acts which apparently brings ‘fresh appeal’ to the show every day. So perhaps today’s particular offering is just a dud hidden amongst a string of gems, but there’s not much on display to indicate that.
The show is compered on this occasion by Phillip Wragg who seems nice enough but he doesn’t do too well at getting the crowd warmed up. He makes a couple of lazy observations about how horribly busy the Royal Mile is and how he wants everyone to get out of his way (thereby insulting most of his audience, probably) and then appears to pause for laughter, which doesn’t come.
The first act, Leo Kearse, comes onstage to a slightly awkward atmosphere and doesn’t do much to diffuse it. He’s coarse and a bit intimidating. Sarah Callaghan is more energetic but once again her material isn’t particularly groundbreaking. She’s followed by Richard Todd who is slightly more promising and at least has the crowd smiling at his surreal stories. He goes off on too many tangents, however, really losing focus. Finally Elena Kombou takes to the stage and she’s a likeable presence but she seems a bit unsure of herself. Anything interesting she has to say trails off after a while.
There’s a sense throughout this show of waiting for something better to come along and it never does. Amongst this particular collection of comedians there are one or two promising opening lines which get the audience’s hopes up, but within a minute each performer loses the crowd’s attention. The compere should at least be able to pick up the energy in the room between acts but he doesn’t deliver. Perhaps the line-up is stronger on some days than others, but it doesn’t seem worth hanging around to find out.
