Al Lubel in...I'm Still Al Lubel

The Fringe offers plenty of opportunity to watch relatively obscure comedians work hard for laughs from uncertain audiences. In these tense situations, the performer has only their road-hardened skills to fall back on as they attempt to gauge and ultimately influence the mood of the room. This is very much how laconic American Al Lubel's set plays out tonight, only the comedian sets himself apart with a neat line in wilful self-sabotage.

Take the moment when he launches into a barely audible routine on eating disorders, with his mouth full of the granola bar that he produced from his pocket seconds earlier. Or how he chooses to warm up the late night crowd by playing a compilation of Leonard Cohen songs. His sung introduction is a hit, but any momentum is prevented from building as he silently struggles to remove his radio mic, its cords forming complex, tangled knots in his hair.

After an hour of false starts, the delight that the man takes in deflating audiences so that he can go through the chore of seducing them all over again becomes apparent. The wealth of tightly constructed one liners and twisted observations at Lubel's disposal are proof that he could be a slick professional if only he wanted to. That he chooses not to, whether through laziness or some other instinct, makes him some kind of purist comedy hero. Whatever his motivations are, when Lubel decides to make us laugh, he absolutely gets the job done.