Solo game, multi-player help

Eton Mess is every bit as delicious as the name suggests. Chunks of silly walks sit alongside bouts of verbal ping-pong reminiscent of Marcus Brigstocke and Danny Robins and a cuddly toy on a conveyor belt gets a cheer just for being there. My only problem with this delightful buffoon of a show is that the hour only seemed to last ten minutes.

Godfrey and Cecil juggle the funny from slapstick to satire without dropping a single laugh. The vicissitudes of the money markets have never been so entertaining, new laughter was squeezed out of Brexit and the Boat Race ran somewhere between Playschool and Python. Even cricket became entertaining – although the streaker on the pitch might have shocked some audience members.

Just when you think this is all comedy jolliness and huge fun we get a dollop of darker stuff from a pro-hunting fox and a pro-slavery advocate from a non-specific colony. And speaking of the hunt, try not to miss The Establishment’s superb fusion of foxkilling and trad jazz.

Mention must be given to the technical department at the Omnitorium for their visual feast of a lighting display during our initiation into the Illuminati and their creation of The Apocalypse which forms part of the show’s Big Finish. Lovers of the giant cockroach are in for a special treat at this point. This is silliness as an art form and it is a fine thing. KATE COPSTICK Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) JJJ Josh Pugh’s Edinburgh debut has come early, after a mere three years performing. And while this is a rather patched-together hour, you can already see substantial evidence of the talent that has secured the 27-year-old so many new act awards.

The conceit he sets up is that he’s pitching his life story as a film, a pointless framing device for otherwise unconnected material, especially baffling when it’s his gentle

0 Amy Conway starts with games, but she ends with words of wisdom and comfort on mental health issues Summerhall (Venue 26) JJJJ Amy Conway’s Super Awesome World is, on the surface, a show about videogames. It starts with a TED Talk-style presentation on the psychological benefits of gaming, complete with quoted statistics from academic research journals that link videogame-playing with resilience against degenerative conditions like dementia and Alzheimer’s. absurdism and unwillingness to adhere to reality’s strictures that sets him apart.

Some great, deceptively simple-sounding gags about being a maze attendant and the problems of a suicidal ventriloquist foreground his offbeat perspective and economic writing, as he packs in joke after joke. There’s a nice running gag about Bob Dylan, reiterating the shaky authority of this slightly shambling comic, and he creates visually pleasing scenarios, imagining the mischief he’d inflict on a single participant in a silent disco.

A spreadsheet claiming to tailor the perfect z-list celebrity to the right engagement doesn’t really work, but it allows him to open up about a personal affliction, while his own meeting with the former Gladiator star Wolf is beautifully

This is less dry and scholarly than it sounds – Conway is an engaging performer, and she breaks up the dense chunks of information with colourful audience participation and reminiscences of a childhood spent in front of the Nintendo – but as the show progresses, videogames become less a focal point for discussion and more a frame for tackling Conway’s real subject: mental health.

It’s not a jarring transition – in fact, audience members are in the midst of helping Conway complete various challenges when it becomes apparent how high the stakes executed. Accomplished at the pull-back and reveal joke, Pugh is also decidedly deft with a pun. JAY RICHARDSON thespace @ Surgeons Hall (Venue 53) JJJ “Nice shoes,” says Helen Wood. I would tell her they are lightweight and waterproof with Vibram soles – but she probably knows this anyway: she is, after all, wearing a quick-release rucksack. She has also been studying the Ordnance Survey (OS) map since she was a child. In this audience, the mere mention of Google maps gets a spontaneous boo. are, from Conway’s point of view in any case.

A virtual sidekick, initially introduced as a wry parody of helpful-but-annoying in-game tutorials, subtly morphs into an inane aphorism dispenser whose advice will be wearily familiar to those with experience of mental health issues: ‘Have you tried going for a walk?’, ‘Chin up! It’s not the end of the world!’ and so on. (On a side note, the technical presentation – all 8-bit bleeps, blocky pixels and chunky scrolling text boxes – is perfectly conceived and executed.)

Having successfully created

During the show, she takes us on a walk – highlighted on a giant map – with her husband and dog, stopping off to tell amusing anecdotes about the history of the OS and childhood hikes. As she meets other map enthusiasts, it quickly becomes apparent that they have something in common: they’re all men. Indeed, it sometimes feels like funny, amiable, relaxed Helen is making a feminist statement simply by putting on this show.

Exploring sexism via mapmaking is a brilliant idea that it would be great to see developed further. In one sequence, the OS map also becomes a vehicle for the kind of flag-waving nostalgia reinvigorated by Brexit. A deeper analysis of how geography defines who we are is also tantalisingly underexplored an atmosphere of self-defeating anxiety and doubt, Conway turns to her experiences as a Samaritans volunteer: a series of quiet, emotionally raw phonecalls that form an effective contrast to the polished and upbeat introductory spiel.

The ending is definitely not of the hugs-and-crying variety, but it does offer reassurance and comfort in its own way – in describing depression not as a binary yes-orno, but as a spectrum that we all suffer differently – one that we needn’t suffer alone. NIKI BOYLE – skimmed over in favour of a simpler celebration of spatial awareness and all of us who love it. SALLY STOTT Scottish Storytelling Centre (Venue 30) J There are two strong elements to this new show from Jordan and Skinner theatre company: Alice Wilson’s beautiful set design and the sense of normalcy surrounding the central tale of two young women falling in love. Other than that, it’s disappointingly devoid of pace, wit and audience empathy. KELLY APTER Greenside @ Infirmary Street (Venue 236) JJJ Donald Trump, as played by Zach Tomasovic, is a gentler, more wistful version of the original, more lost soul than liar. The Oval Office is reduced here to a tiny desk with a pair of very large red buttons, one for ordering Diet Pepsi, the other for launching a nuclear strike.

This is a charming, surprisingly subtle, low-fi satire that avoids the pitfalls of parody with a subject well beyond it, and finds the silliness in Nero fiddling while the rest of the world has a heart attack.

Tomasovic and Nate Mcleod, playing Jared Kushner, Vladimir Putin and a few other notorious characters, deliver their own kind of madness as they scrabble around with cassette tapes in ill-fitting wigs. The scene in the stalls at the National Ballet of Slovenia is a particular scene to remember.

Mcleod, an La-based actor and writer, and Tomasovic, a comedian in New York, are both alumni of The Mask and Wig Club, America’s oldest all-male collegiate comedy group. The show is about the implosion, rather than the impeachment, of Donald Trump, not with a bang but a whimper. Dream on. But if you’re looking for relief from the doom and gloom from Washington, this decently daft show will do nicely. TIM CORNWELL Underbelly Cowgate (Venue 61) JJ Why? That’s the question left bouncing around your brain after watching this one-woman play about post-childbirth incontinence.

Sara Juli seems like a lovely woman, skipping around the stage in a light-up pinny, handing out vibrators, giving the audience crisps, reading out her own medical notes and tying up our shoelaces.

Her oddly desexualised account of her faulty foo-foo is not offensive, unpleasant or boring. But it is weirdly pointless. Nice as it is to be in a show where you can eat gummy bears and take toilet breaks, this feels like adult daycare rather than theatre. CLAIRE SMITH