Craig Campbell's Easy Tiger

There’s a standard ‘start’ procedure for most Fringe standup shows. Your act hovers pensively in the wings then usually has to announce his or her own entrance, which is quite odd, when you think about it. So some choose a more organic approach.

“Okay, I feel comfortable, let’s start the fucking show!” hollers Craig Campbell, from mid-stage, 10 minutes after his allotted start time; but then he has been chatting off-script for a good half hour. You get more bang for your buck at a Campbell gig. How many other comics warm up their own wandering-in audiences?

A hairy Canadian biker, Campbell outwardly cultivates something of a wild-man image, even hinting in the Fringe Guide blurb that he’ll perform this show in a tiger-striped onesie. In fact the vision on stage is much more sedate: he’s wearing shorts, yes, but also daintily sipping tea. And that’s the unlikely topic for a good early chunk of Easy Tiger: tea, coffee, milk, and what those beverages tell us Brits about ourselves. It isn’t rock ‘n’ roll, but it is thoroughly entertaining, as he rattles through a mighty repertoire of mad-eyed characters.

Sadly, others in this weekend audience have been drinking something stronger, and a stupidly spiteful heckle, though batted away by Campbell, puts a slight dampener on the second half. His subsequent tales of exotic international exploits just don’t hit the same heights. Or perhaps that early arrival causes the lull: will Edinburgh audiences wilt if comics do more than an hour? Best get some coffee brewing too.