Alistair Green: Nobody's Twisting Your Arm

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“It’s like Oscar Wilde this show, innit,” grins Alistair Green, after a particularly foul-mouthed rant goes enjoyably off the rails. The gangly, grim-faced Green has aimed his arsenal of righteous ire at younger, sexier comics in recent years via a character called Jack Spencer, but is now back at the Fringe under his own steam, and spraying invective all over the shop. Thick people, clever people, blokes who change their names to something stupid, blokes whose names were already stupid – all human life is rubbished here.

Green can get away with disparaging pretty much everyone because, as opposed to the aggressive alpha-male performers, his total-loser persona seems worryingly authentic. The most significant woman in this show, for example, is his 94-year-old nan.

She turns up in an anecdote about his disastrous debut show (upshot: never mention onstage that you’ve just been to see a grandparent if you’re trying to appear cool and confident, and you don’t want hecklers shouting something obscene), then reappears in arguably the best routine. It’s an exasperated rumination on the curious hierarchy of grandparents’ anecdotes: all those fascinating war stories forgotten, in favour of one oft-repeated tale about a neighbour from the '50s. It perhaps isn’t breaking much new ground, but rather than just bemoan the elderly, Green gives the impression that he’d genuinely love to communicate better. Which is pretty positive, when you think about it.

Green may be irascible, but he’s also believable – a virtue frequently overlooked by those chasing the funny.