Ria Lina: School of Riason

One can only sympathise with Ria Lina: six months spent writing a show that deals in large part with Michael Gove's controversial education reforms, only for Britain's least popular politician to be dumped from his post mere weeks before her Fringe run begins. Despite this sensationally bad luck (for her, not for England's schoolchildren), School of Riason is a witty and provocative delight, with only a few uneven elements.

Equal parts an account of Lina's decision to homeschool her three children and a polemic against the British education system which led her to do so, the show's greatest strength is Lina herself. Comedically, Lina is a master of the unexpected one-liner, which helps break up the more longform (though equally amusing) material in which she reflects on her homeschooling adventure. While most of her cheerfully caustic criticisms of Gove have been made before, her articulation is compelling and charismatic, and lacks the hectoring quality to which many political standups succumb. Unlike them, Lina never loses her eloquence, or our patience.

While an accompanying PowerPoint presentation is clearly necessary to many of Lina's jokes, it relies a little too heavily on material culled from the internet. Meanwhile, most of her frequent interludes on the ukulele are both funny and gorgeously sung, but one ditty concerning the mutual antagonism between Britain and France feels out of place in an otherwise intelligent show. Nevertheless, Lina's natural grace as a comedian, as well as her vivid comic imagination, should persuade audiences to ignore such minor missteps.