Craig Hill: Why Don't You Come Down the Front?

A few highlights shine through, but a short routine about people from Fife not being able to make facial expressions is the only genuinely hilarious moment. He spends the first two thirds of his show calling on members of the audience, eeking out cheap laughs from their names and what they're wearing; it feels like a full five minutes is spent on Hill looking around to see who answered his string of "Anyone from [insert town here] in the house?" questions, each of which is followed by a diatribe about how shit the place is.

When he finally gets round to his own jokes, they consist mainly of well-worn gags about neds and long-winded, unfunny anecdotes about gay cruising. Gay people are sufficiently well-integrated into society that they are no longer 'the Other', no longer an exotic subject ripe for comedy. But Hill doesn't seem to have noticed, and once he's exhausted his small stock of genuinely funny and intelligent observations, he falls back on milking his sexuality for all it's worth. Perhaps this would have been funny 15 years ago, but not anymore. After 11 years at the Fringe, Hill is looking distinctly dated.