Comedy Review: Clive Anderson: Me, Macbeth and I Assembly George Square Studios (Venue 17), Edinburgh

If you create a Venn Diagram of entertainment with sets containing The Bee Gees, The Woodland Trust, football, tragic theatrical deaths (including one suicide and a probable murder), Shakespeare-induced rioting on the streets of New York, witchcraft, identity politics, prunes and Macbeth then in one intersecting set stands, in full Highland dress, Clive Anderson.

clive

****

To say this show is comfortable sounds like faint praise, but it is not. It is a pleasure to be in an audience as relaxed and entertained as this, watching a performer who is also, obviously, enjoying himself, whether reminiscing about disasters onscreen, regrooming some glorious old theatrical warhorse anecdotes, recounting the legacy of carnage that Shakespeare’s Macbeth has left across the centuries or deftly slipping in some dagger-sharp political observations.

Anderson is too often the man behind the desk, the conduit, the Chat Prefect. Let him out centre stage and something wonderful happens. He softens, he becomes more expansive and he glows.

It also helps that he is ferociously smart and has plenty fodder for his fun.

The show covers a lot of ground, none of it too taxing, all of it entertaining and it is, exactly, what it says on the ticket.

His canter through his own Shakespearean career is an absolute joy, I desperately want to see more of his Scottish stand-up and the skill with which he peppers the hour with tiny political jibes is wonderful to watch.

We even get a tiny performance of one of old Maccer’s soliloquies. Just a few lines. Perfectly judged. Like the entire show. Once a lawyer…

Until 25 August. Today 9.30pm

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