Nick Coyle: Double Tribute

Nick Coyle is a lonely man. So intense are his feelings of heartache and isolation that he has difficulty standing before an audience without the aid of a veil and several pairs of novelty glasses. Even once he's built up the confidence to strip away these layers of protection and security, he remains visibly nervous, and rightly so. Double Tribute is a show in which Coyle bares not only his own soul, but also that of his dead girlfriend Jenny. A generous performer, he even spends a portion of this moving eulogy baring the soul of Garth, the lover with whom she repeatedly cheated on him.

After introducing us to Jenny's ashes and the cyborg he constructed as her replacement, the Australian delves into her diary so that we can better understand the woman responsible for his sexual awakening and current ennui. This leads down an unpredictable avenue of nut allergies and dystopian futures, Coyle presenting us with images so harrowing that audience members long for novelty glasses of their own.

Coyle is a captivating performer, whose perseverance in the face of an initially baffled late night crowd pays off greatly. The hour is so densely packed full of ideas, precise physicality and surprising turns of phrase, that it's best just to surrender and allow the comic's unstable whimsy to wash over you. There will be far slicker shows on at the Fringe, but few so deserving of breakthrough success.