Art, science, goats and the meaning of everything

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) JJJJ Will is going nowhere. He’s finished his studies and working as a decorator while he cares for his mother. One day, just to get him off his backside, friend Ravi drags him to the local gym for a trial session. Will’s not done anything especially physical since the hated PE lessons at school, and he’s not keen.

But he surprises himself by enjoying a bit of physical exertion. Soon, he’s enjoying a lot of physical exertion, and the way his improving body makes him feel better about himself. He bumps into an old college mate, Bec, who notices him in a way she never did previously. They start dating, learning about one another, developing in-jokes over wine and ice cream. Will is healthier, and happier.

A couple of months down the line, though, and the balance of Will’s life has changed. He’s reorganising his job to allow more time at the gym, watching every little thing he eats, taking supplements and looking amazing. But, obsessed with his progress, he’s never happy and it’s hurting his relationships.

I don’t recall hearing the terms “bigorexia” or “Body Dysmorphic Disorder” during this play’s frenetic 60 minutes, but they’re not necessary – Will’s progressively less healthy attitude towards his body is there for all to see in Tom Vallen’s superb playing of his own script. Will’s journey from slacker to “gym bunny” to someone who badly needs help dealing with body image is convincing, almost hypnotic in its intensity. Making Vallen’s performance extra impressive is the fact that he rarely stops moving – doing press-ups, seated dips, burpees ... this man’s physique is not faked.

The play wouldn’t work without co-stars Bethan James and Tarrick Benham, their rounded portrayals of Bec and Ravi grounding the action. Movement director Jess Tucker Boyd deserves a big nod for her work with the actors, while director Philip Scott-wallace knits everything together into a tight, very watchable drama. The only thing I’m not convinced by is the occasional use of strobe lighting; even setting aside the risk of migraine, it’s flash rather than substance.

It’s a minor quibble about a play which should be The Stand Comedy Club 2 (Venue 5) Gilded Balloon at the Museum (Venue 64) JJJJ Honestly, you wait three years for a Robin Ince show and then two come along together. But it would seem that the cardie-clad, comedic philomath has been writing shows all along, merely forgetting to bring them to the Fringe because of Brian Coxrelated distractions and now he has remembered, packed six hours of material into two hour-long shows and set up his displays of the art of the brilliant babble at both the Stand and the Museum.

Of course, there is a scientific explanation for the intensity of an Ince performance. The Ince brain is like a black hole in a galaxy of knowledge. When it collides with another black hole – required watching for anyone who finds themselves getting obsessive about selfimprovement. A Gym Thing never hammers its message home, instead making its points with a brutal elegance. MARTIN GRAY ZOO (Venue 124) JJJ Jacob (Jack Tricker) and Tommy (Evan Rees) are two regular teenage boys – permanently engaged in a firefight of testosterone-charged banter about girls, booze and video games – but with one key difference: Jacob has testicular cancer, and has six weeks to live. With his final days on earth, he and say the Fringe – the energy waves that are produced are perceived, by us, as “shows”. These two “shows” are differentiated by one having slides and looking at science and art and engagement, and one having no slides and exploring good and bad. I am, of course, paraphrasing, and not well. The Stand show is full of anecdote and selfanalysis. It is hilariously and, finally, painfully personal.

His anecdotes chart the dichotomy of “good” Robin vs “bad” Robin, he bemoans the difficulties of being properly left-wing, with reference to personal pronouns and M&S, and reveals his ideas for some new TV shows.

The Museum show is a race through Ince’s relationship with art. It contains absolutely the best Stewart Lee impression in the world and a goat, which you may or not see. I hated that it ended.

As it did, his explanation of why he doesn’t read newspapers in the morning makes for life-changing thought. You could feel the shift in the room as what he was saying sank in. Both shows, you should be warned, involve an Tommy plan a party that will allow Jacob to say goodbye to their peers on his own terms (though not entirely – the word “funeral” is forbidden by Jacob’s mum).

Rees is particularly entertaining – not just as Tommy, but as an array of supporting characters who flesh out the boys’ world: Jacob’s mum and a classmate nicknamed “ASBO Josh”. Both leads deserve praise for fully committing to the roles. Tricker and Rees’ natural rapport, however, is sometimes undermined by scripted teenage boys’ banter that is a little too witty. Some less-polished wordplay would have made the pair a bit more believable Similarly, while the actors do justice to the emotional scenes that accompany Jacob’s eventual decline, the scenes themselves feel heavyhanded.

0 Robin Ince: Two shows on the Fringe. Try to see them both element of poetry. There is no time-wasting. Ince doesn’t delay our gratification by asking if we are having a nice time because he pretty much knows that within five minutes we will be having a bloody marvellous time. Because there is only one Yes, this is a “cancer play”, so it will come with a jumbo-sized helping of sad bits, but it requires a lighter touch than this. NIKI BOYLE Pleasance Dome (Venue 23) JJJ “Are you from the fillums?” people ask Dave Johns in his native Newcastle (“like it was a place”) and, yes, the veteran stand-up is now best-known as the lead of Ken Loach’s Palme d’or winning film I, Daniel Blake.

The benefits are clear; he now gets to perform to larger audiences (you doubt Kirsty Wark would have been so keen to see him perform late thing better than a Robin Ince show, and that is two Robin Ince shows. I urge you to see them both. KATE COPSTICK night at The Stand a couple of years ago) and he has got new experiences to talk about.

Some of these are very funny, some you doubt the veracity of and some are just a bunch of stuff that happened with a famous person in the room. Johns can still sell the weaker anecdotes by virtue of his innate likability (the accent helps too) and, while he looks a little stunned by his new-found fame, this is by no means an exercise in self-aggrandisement (he’s a much better actor than he will ever realise). However, Johns strongest talent was always the ability to react to the unexpected and bounce off the audience. Playing larger rooms somewhat robs him of this ability, but that is the price of fame, right there. RORY FORD Irish eyes are certainly smiling from Micky Bartlett’s face – for a man who is only just hitting 30, he has an impressively avuncular vibe. Don’t be fooled, though, this is no cosy comedian. He is here to share his observations on life in his native Northern Ireland: it is where sectarianism meant his new best friend lasted only two weeks and where a favourite relative proved to have feet of clay, but so long as they were white, fine. When he turns his eye on Scotland, and an undeniable aspect of Leith life, he is great company.

Bartlett could do with surprising us a bit more, though. Telling a Fringe audience that racism is bad, and women have a tough time, isn’t going to rock anyone’s world in 2017; at times he’s reminiscent of a less-hectoring Ben Elton. And if you are going to condemn sexism and speak up for LGBT equality, a gag about Arlene Foster looking like she is auditioning for the gays and lesbians should perhaps be gently retired.

Still, there is a lot of potential here; one of Bartlett’s first jobs out of university was dressing up as a Subway sandwich – he won’t be doing that again anytime soon. MARTIN GRAY In this innovative but exploitative show about intimacy, Sam Ward uses the audience to highlight the emptiness of throwaway sex. To do this, he juxtaposes explicit tales of his encounters with strangers online with (predominantly) female audience members’ personal thoughts and feelings, which they’re asked to reveal on stage.

Sam is an amiable host clearly working through his own intimacy issues, but the audience members don’t really get a say in the imaginative but challenging routines they are coerced into participating in. “Can’t I ask you a question?” a woman asks wryly during a oneway emotional interrogation. No, it seems. This is Sam’s show and we are the props. SALLY STOTT