Theatre review: Aidan Goatley: Happy Britain Part 1, Sweet Grassmarket, Edinburgh
That's exactly what makes comedian Aidan Goatley's piece of storytelling stand-up so intriguing; the conceit of it is that the Brighton-based comic chose to take himself on a modern-day odyssey around the country, visiting a point as close to the Google centre of all 105 counties in the United Kingdom as possible and ask the first person he meets what makes them happy.
It's so close to the high-concept storytelling style employed by Mark Thomas, in fact, that Goatley even contacted Thomas for advice; he was told, perhaps unsurprisingly, to ask a question about being prepared to pay higher taxes to fund the NHS instead. Goatley, an experienced hand at this form through shows like 10 Films with My Dad, doesn't have the same high degree of storytelling nous as Thomas - he doesn't gather up a succession of gathered anecdotes into quite the same complex web of layered narrative and discovery - but hearing about his personal journey is a warm and entertaining hour nonetheless, from a gay sauna in the Home Counties to his new inspiration, the indefatigable Dundonian poet William Topaz McGonagall.
Until 25 August