Storytellers' Club

While the typical booze-sodden late-night Fringe show aims to fire an audience up for a night out, Storytellers' Club relaxes its crowd with a few bedtime stories. The show takes place in the leaky Pleasance Ark, a kids' venue dotted with pictures of Charlie and Lola and replete with a fire-effect hearth. The atmosphere is charming and childlike without being twee.

With such care taken with the setting, it's a shame that there are frequent moments when many in the audience seem to be longing for the Pleasance beer garden mere feet away. Tonight, the standard of the comedy hovers around mediocre, and there are several walkouts.

Of the five acts (the lineup changes nightly), Rob Rouse and Asher Treleaven try to rescue the show with some solid comedy, but are balanced out by the weaker Dave Hill and Gordon Southern. The chief problem though is compere, Sarah Bennetto. A rambling, inept host with a tendency towards very long links, she is able to extinguish any potentially humorous situation by coating it with pure tedium. With Bennetto at the helm, the show never manages to build any real atmosphere, and it becomes ever more tempting to gaze through the Ark's portholes at the beer drinkers outside.

Storyteller's Club is a smart idea as an alternative to the usual late shows, but is seriously flawed in its execution. Poorly hosted and only occasionally funny, you'll wish you'd stayed in the pub.