Eleanor Thom: I am Bev

"I'm going to take you on a journey" is always a groan-inducing begining to a show and despite deft characterisation from former Lady Garden member Eleanor Thom, it's a journey that goes nowhere in particular. Dressed to the nines in Primark leopard-print leggings and day-glo orange blouse, Thom plays Beverley Hill, a thirty-something Yorkshire housewife trying to make it big in TV.

Though her story starts amusingly enough with Bev arriving at the now empty White City studios to woo BBC executives, she soon gets sidetracked into telling us about the ostensibly unconnected ins and outs of her everyday life Oop Norf. The details of her home life, her dogs and the local Water Ladies aquarobics class are told with charm and warmth, but unfortunately without much in the way of laughs.

The show's central conceit—that the tour bus Bev has hired to take the audience round Edinburgh has broken down, leaving her to improvise—only serves to underline the slightly ramshackle, halting nature of her routine. Similarly, too many gimmicks—she hands round a cooler bag of Tunnock's teacakes, leads the audience in exercise and asks for a minute's silence for no reason in particular—feel like attempts to fill in the gaps where proper material should be.

That said, there is something inherently likeable about Thom's alter ego and when we find her one step closer to TV stardom, one can't help feel cheered and smile at her breathless, girlish excitement. Bev is a solid basis for Thom's solo career: now she just needs the gags to match her.