Mark Little- THEbullsh*tARTIST

Of all the reviews I wrote during this year's Fringe Festival, this is my favourite. Normally it's a bit of a drag having to attend potentially rubbish shows alone on a Saturday night, but ticket prices were so expensive for Mark Little that I felt almost priviledged to have been allocated his. Besides which, he's a sort of minor celebrity and there's nothing more thrilling than seeing one of them in person. The show was baffling and watching it felt like participating in a psychological study.

I like the review mainly because I got to write the word 'cunt' next to the show's pathetically censored (probably not by Little himself, to be fair) title.

With all due respect to Mark Little, the man is a dinosaur. He's been performing comedy since the early 80s and retains some of the era's incendiary spirit, but his first Edinburgh show since 2005 is a relic from a bygone age. Ignorant of the industry's current climate, he damns contemporary acts for their perceived tendency to insult audiences and posits himself as some kind of approachable, right-thinking alternative. The former Neighbours star may shudder when uttering David Cameron's name and repeatedly brands Rupert Murdoch a cunt, but despite THEbullsh*tARTIST's often honourable intentions, he seems more confused by the present than he'd ever care to admit.

Essentially delivering a 40 minute preamble followed by a meagre helping of solid material, Little rails against a world of lies and bureaucracy with no focus whatsoever. Though he acknowledges that his allocated hour is hardly long enough for him to make an impact on the audience (he says that it takes him at least 30 minutes to “get to know everyone”), he nevertheless wastes half this time engaging with tedious drunk latecomers and probing us for irrelevant information. Keen to appear as an intellectual and an everyman, the comic struggles to reconcile both sides of his character and subsequently fails to do justice to either.

Does Little support the Occupy movement referenced many times throughout the hour, or is he an armchair pundit who thinks all that's needed to solve our problems is old fashioned common sense? We're still unclear as we exit the venue, the comedian's closing line “Take it outside, let's get stuck into them!” ringing meekly in our ears.