Simon Evans: Fringe Magnet

Arguably the most disappointing thing about Simon Evans' Fringe Magnet is that it has the potential to be so very good. At times he flirts with excellence and seems to be teetering on the edge of establishing a name for himself. Yet all too often his brilliantly incisive and original material is padded out with tired and overworked gags.

Evans is very much a craftsman when it comes to his comedy. Painstakingly and methodically building up a gag before unleashing a series of rasping one-liners, repeatedly setting up jokes only to end them with a twist. When it works he's up there with the very best. His take on Welsh and Geordie life is delivered to devastating effect yet his observations on Scotland seem to have been lazily wedged into his set purely by virtue of location. We all know Scotland is cold and wet, and it is during these sections of drab patter that Evans struggles to hold onto his audience.

At his best he talks of his plans to fight obesity through government-backed space hopper schemes, and urges an en-masse public defecation in McDonalds as retaliation for all they have inflicted on the world.

While Evans adopts the foppish persona of roguish royal crossed with Harry Enfield's Tim Nice-But-Dim, he is at his most powerful when he abandons the façade and embarks on a left-wing critique of consumerist society, hilariously illustrated through cameras, fat people and boy scouts.