Festival reviews: Jimeoin | Kieran Hodgson | Simon Munnery

THE pick of the Fringe’s comedy shows.

EVERY year at the Fringe there seems to be an easy, topical target that comics fall over themselves to talk about. Dressage is the current favourite and Jimeoin (EICC, 6pm, until August 26, rating: * * *) is no different.

While that particular thread on horse dancing, and a tired old gag about statistics might be uninspiring stuff, the rest is in complete contrast.

Specialising in half-muttered musings that produce a laugh out of nowhere, Jimeoin also makes good use of facial expressions, while the last quarter spent with his guitar lampooning rock song clichés is a brilliantly daft piece of observation. Save for the odd expletive, it’s silly, safe humour - a show with broad appeal.

The literature for Kieran Hodgson: Supervillan (Voodoo Rooms, 1.15pm, until August 25, rating: * *) promises a one-man sketch show framed by a reasonably coherent narrative, but instead all we get is a jumbled, disconnected mish-mash.

He’s an able performer, with a knack for accents and voices, but his quality of writing leaves something to be desired, as does the clumsy, cringeworthy ‘transformation’ between personas.

Skits featuring the Mayor of Mansfield and a vicar in mourning for his cat fall flat, while the identities of some characters are too vague.

There are some laughs to be had – the send-up of Sherlock baddie Jim Moriarty is perceptive and uncannily accurate - but even that fails to raise this above the mundane.

In a terrifically tasty pastiche of the pretensions of food snobbery, the staff (of one) at Simon Munnery’s La Concepta (WhiteSpace, 12.10pm & and 1.10pm, until August 25, rating: * * *) serve up the most delicious meal you’ll never eat. With just eight non-diners at each sitting, it’s an intimate, eccentric oddity, full of fantastically bizarre wordplay and visual gags - some of which take longer to digest then others - and will leave your comedy appetite sated. It’s only a matter of time before a conceited restaurateur tries this for real.