Patrick Turpin: Itty Bitty Little Titty Piece

Patrick Turpin spends much of this show labouring under the notion that tedious, puerile schtick will accrue greater comic value the longer he persists with it. The hour sees him wag dildo after dildo in our faces, while making constant reference to dicks – mostly his own, but also ours. The first appearance of a sex toy on stage is met with only a few generous chuckles and this reaction diminishes over the course of the gig. His persistence achieves nothing other than to make the set's non-dick-related highlights seem like moments of sheer luck.

The root of Itty Bitty Little Titty Piece's problems is that Turpin is a peculiarly charmless performer, over-familiar when he strives to be confrontationally weird. Lou Sanders, the show's director, has form for testing audiences' patience thresholds, but almost always gets away with self-indulgence because her own incredulous amusement is so infectious. Her protege comes across as entitled by contrast, taking liberties with our time before we've even established a rapport.

The act's ambition and determination to produce work which is decidedly offbeat is to be applauded, while the strength of some ideas buried beneath the dick material suggests that this may just be a misfire. Any enjoyment to be had from his more inventive moments is tempered by the repeated promise that he'll soon get back to the penis humour, and we're left wondering if this is what he thinks we really want.