Demetri Martin: If I..., Assembly Rooms, Supper Room, Edinburgh

Steve Jelbert
Saturday 09 August 2003 00:00 BST
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Intelligence can be a burden - something the clean-cut New Yorker Demetri Martin knows only too well. His Edinburgh debut sees him revealing secrets those of us who've never ridden a unicycle around campus might prefer to keep hidden. Always a geeky child, unaccountably fired from the age of 11 with an ambition to be a corporate lawyer, he's now transformed his past indiscretions into the stuff of an hour-long show.

And very dull they are, too, as the tepid reaction from a full house showed. By the time he'd finished recounting how he'd enlivened his two years at law school with that old trick of inserting inappropriate, pre-selected words into his speeches, I'd felt like I'd been there that long myself. Big deal, mate - footballers do the same in post-match interviews. Real lawyers even do it in court. One marvels at just how tedious the college chums who called him "Crazy Demetri" must have been.

A beautifully constructed section involving palindromic photo-captions aside, Martin's wit never matches his undeniable charm. Honestly, it's like watching Lisa Simpson doing stand-up.

Venue 3, 9.15pm (1hr) to 25 Aug, not tomorrow (0131-226 2428)

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