Comedy review: Glenn Wool: Viva Forever

Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Happiness and impending fatherhood are rarely good for a comic's material. Especially the bad boy comic. But Glenn Wool seems to be coping with both without losing his funny firepower.

Heroes @ Monkey Barrel (Venue 515)

****

He gallops though a bit of Wooly background and then, via Pierre Trudeau and his lovely son Justin, lays out for us just how much he has given up for love.

Wool is now living among us with his partner and a soon to be Glennlet. His day job is opening for Reg D Hunter on tour and, while comics telling stories about other gigs they have done are one of my Top Ten turn-offs, Wool’s tales of offences taken and attempts made to get him fired are both hilarious and appalling. His humour has not been lightened one shade by impending fatherhood but as well as the blackly brilliant material about priests and Michael Schumacher and the awful possibilities behind Angela Merkel’s policy on refugees, we get the upside of dating someone much younger than you (one of Wool’s specialist subjects), the joy of farmgirls and a little section about snowflakes that will test your pelvic floor to destruction. An hour with Wool is worth about ten hours with many other comics. The laughter, the bad-boy feelgood factor, the sheer unexpectednesses of much of his comedy and the genuine warmth of this smiley bear-hug of a comic is something he never, ever fails to bring to the party. You even get a Reg Hunter impression. Which is probably funnier than Hunter himself. Do go. Daddy needs the money, ‘cos babies are expensive.

Until 27 August. Today 7:40pm.