Bring Me the Head of Adam Riches

There's very few ways of putting this politely: Adam Riches' show is frankly dangerous. Dangerous not just because you are liable to find yourself selected for any manner of bizarre activities (I'm fairly sure I left the show having agreed to some form of common law marriage to him). Nor is it just because there's a genuine chance that you'll over-exert an intercostal muscle through 60 solid minutes of laughing – which is the fundamental point to which these 250 words attest, however indirectly.

Mostly, it's because Riches appears to take an audience to the very boundaries of what Pleasance health and safety could possibly deem acceptable. That anyone gets out alive is testament to his spectacular control of a form he has truly mastered.

To all appearances, Bring me the Head of Adam Riches is never more than a whisker away from absolute chaos. Organised around a series of characters, Riches combines richly scripted scene-setting with a style of audience interaction limited only by the comic's frantic imagination. But beneath this veneer of anarchism, a strong sense of control is clearly at work, without which this show would crash and burn. 

Sometimes participants do as they are told. More often than not they don't, yet Riches is sharp and skilled enough to make a virtue of the unexpected. Instantly likable and hugely energetic, Riches cajoles, berates and charms every scrap of comedy from his characters, his assistants and his audience.

Never less than brilliant, Bring me the Head of Adam Riches is an absolute riot.