Eco-Friendly Jihad

Review by Ben Judge | 21 Aug 2008

Looking every inch the former student politician, Adie Philbin Bowman—the creator of Jesus: The Guantanamo years—returns to Edinburgh this year with an hour long lecture-come-stand-up about, as the title may suggest, the environment.

While the beard, long hair, shorts and sandals make one's mind reel at the prospect of an unreconstructed, scientifically-dubious eco-rant, Bowman is surprising intelligent and well-read.  This is, as he himself notes, "comedy with footnotes."

Problematically, though, it's not particularly funny, which may explain the decision to lump this in the "Theatre" section of the Fringe programme.  The delivery is poor – rushed, slightly stilted and overly fragile.  This has the effect of ruining a reasonably strong central premise: exploring the possibility that Al Quaeda may have a positive environmental impact.