Julian McCullough: Dream Girls

Julian McCullough genuinely seems like one of the good guys. If you see him on the street, say hello, ask him for a drink, and let him tell you about the quietly quirky ways in which he used to obsess over former girlfriends – the listening to Jeff Buckley songs in the dark, the 90 love letters written over a summer, the regretful tattoos.

Yes, take the 35 year-old American for a drink (non-alcoholic – he's admirably on the wagon), and gently tell him that this—friends swapping stories of mildly embarrassing things they did in their youth—is the most natural habitat for his anecdotes.

On the Fringe stage in front of a bunch of paying strangers they are just exposed and diminished. These are small town stories lost in the big city.

Even McCullough seems unsure of his High Fidelty-style tour of his life. His eyes are cast downwards, he occasionally loses track, and punchlines arrive flustered and under-prepared, if at all.

Only when he finally casts off the structured part of the show, starts chatting to the crowd and draws on sparky repartee from another comic universe does he begin to land laughs beyond the sympathetic chuckle. It only serves to throw into further relief how watery his tales of romantic failure are.

His overarching lesson is that he always projected his dreams on to the girls he fell for, loving the idea not the person. Reality inevitably broke his heart. It is a realisation that should stand him good stead. His first experience of the Fringe might be all too painfully familiar.