Robin Ince: Carl Sagan is Still My God

This is a midday Free Fringe show for people who like science, or as compere Robin Ince puts it, ‘anyone who doesn’t think that everything in the whole universe is dull.’ It’s a loose theme, but still one that some of the comics performing here are more suited to than others. Helen Keen gives a chirpy account of the eccentricities of some of the earliest rocket scientists that’s more interesting than funny. Mike Wozniak talks biology, specifically he and his wife’s attempts to conceive. It could have been too cerebral for this early time of day, but it goes down very well with the resolutely mature and intelligent crowd. John-Luke Roberts is a pleasingly off-the-wall one-liner comedian who selects whichever of his gags mention something vaguely sciencey for this set. Cholesterol, tides and nanotechnologists all feature, and the humour is appropriately clever and fastidiously crafted for the crowd.

The real hero’s welcome, though, is saved for Richard Wiseman, popular psychology writer, sceptic and all-round excellent chap, who chooses to deconstruct the psychology of some basic magic tricks that he learnt as a child. It’s intriguing stuff, delivered with charm and wry humour. And then there’s Ince himself, who punctuates the hour by eulogising the physicist Richard Feynman, lambasting the Fringe-bothering medium Joe Power, and reading an excerpt from a Carl Sagan essay, about his reaction as an atheist to the death of his parents, that brings an unexpected tear to the eye. It's a well-curated, intelligent show that proves that comedy so early in the day can be all the more effective for catching you off guard.