Comedy review: Brennan Reece: Evermore, Pleasance

Everything about this show is delightful: there is live music played on two keyboards as we come in, there are twinkly lights and a nice rug, and there is Brennan Reece, adorable, vulnerable, frequently disappointed in love, addicted to romcoms, son to a dipsomaniac mother and able to pull off a fudge-coloured stage outfit that would defeat many lesser comics.

Brennan Reece: Evermore, Pleasance (Venue 33) ****

This is a life story, a love story and and absolute joy. Which is not to say that we are not treated to Reece’s confessions of doing things, as a 14-year-old, to the soft and not so soft furnishings in his house that would challenge the powers of Vanish, to his ideas for his ideal phone sexline, to his ruthless dismissals of all the ones who were not the one and to his Cheat Code for Life.

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This is beautifully, carefully-written stuff. There is a frisson of appreciation one gets from a properly crafted piece of comedy writing and you get it here. There is a ­glorious section about why football is gayer than walking a chihuahua, and it deservedly gets an applause break.

Despite the tight scripting, Reece has fun with his audience, although he has the sense not to let chat about the two long-married couples in the front row get in the way of the actual narrative.

When he starts to tell the tale of “the one”, it is entrancing and positively romantic, despite random drunks in late night Edinburgh and happy endings above a betting shop.

Reece has some of the best descriptive lines in Edinburgh and his show most definitely is a “show”, rather than an “hour”. This is comedy as an art and craft form and it is wonderful to see.

• Until 27 August, 6pm