Daniel Piper is in Four Gangs

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We're introduced to Daniel Piper's autobiographical fantasy via a warped John Barry score, immediately recognisable as an inept and overblown James Bond theme. Appropriately, both adjectives apply to the performer's on-stage persona. The Piper we meet is a ridiculous creation cursed with a tendency to undercut his grandiose storytelling with embarrassingly truthful asides. He's had all the ticks of Ian Fleming's iconic creation hardwired into him from a young age, but is an awkward, insecure fool at heart.

Here he relates to us his wholly unimpressive experience as a member of several gangs. Most comedians would approach material on their adolescence by mocking their younger selves. Not so Piper, who plays the part of his show's proud narrator completely straight. By refusing to distance himself from his humiliating formative years, it's suggested that the same weaknesses lie at the core of who he is today.

Originally one half of a two-man gang specialising in household yoghurt theft, Piper was 11 when he fell in with an online James Bond discussion forum. This was a tumultuous time in his life, marked by minor flashes of romance and betrayal. A measure of self awareness is achieved years later as our hero takes up beat poetry to impress a girl at uni, but the comic shies away from offering any kind of tidy conclusion. For his first Fringe show, he's happy serving up a purely funny, palpably awkward hour.