Comedy review: Scott Capurro

AS THE years go by, could Scott Capurro be losing his edge? Track down any review of any of his previous shows, from his 1994 Edinburgh Fringe debut Risk-Gay on through Fowl Play, Loaded and the Perrier-nominated Love and Affection Tour and you will more likely than not read about an audience member or 20 "storming out".

On Tuesday night, though, as performed current show Scott Capurro Goes Deeper, the clatter of the exit door behind another shocked customer was not heard once. Either the San Franciscan is toning it down these days or his audience was too broad-minded. Or, Capurro concluded, having paid for a ticket, there's no way a Scottish crowd would leave without getting value.

But if you thought he has stopped culling all those sacred cows, you'll have to think again. There are extended, arguably death-defying sequences about the Koran in this show, stacks of gags about his lustful feelings for Jesus, and plenty of borderline shout-outs for the McCanns, Fritzl, the Holocaust, Diana, Christopher Reeve and Obama.

While no-one in the crowd deemed any of this stuff sufficiently offensive to head for the safety of the street, they did little to prevent themselves from becoming a target: chief among them a Texan who had left her hubby in Houston while she hunts for the Loch Ness Monster.

Whatever anyone thinks of Capurro, there's little argument that he is a technically-gifted comic with each barb softened by a comedic hug before the set-up empathy has acid poured all over it again. And when it comes to stretching stand-up comedy's boundaries, Scott Capurro really does go much, much deeper than the rest.