Comedy Review: Stephen Buchanan: Baby Dove, Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh

Wry and personable, with the endearing shtick of being a self-deprecating small man who still lives with his mother, Stephen Buchanan's immediately obvious everyman appeal has seen him win several high-profile awards and announce himself as a great hope for Scottish comedy.

Steve Buchanan offers up Baby Dove as a compassionate antidote to intolerance.

Stephen Buchanan: Baby Dove, Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh ***

But he's got another facet of his story that bears mentioning, the fact that he also lives with Dove, a Vietnamese refugee taken in by his social worker mother.

Dove's journey to Glasgow is perfunctorily glossed over in its grimness. Yet, once established, it allows Buchanan to draw out the comically misinformed bigotry of some of his neighbours, and inspires a series of culture clash misunderstandings, with the comic's struggle to adequately explain Halloween being a particularly entertaining example. With his preference for focusing on human aspects, rather than the political quagmire of immigration,

Buchanan keeps his observations localised and light. And he's a deft storyteller, negatively contrasting his own incapacity to leave the family nest with Dove's enforced flight. However, that doesn't preclude him from taking an amusingly contrived chance to have a pop at a certain British newspaper and the hostile views they promote, offering up Baby Dove as a compassionate antidote to such intolerance.

Until 25 August

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