Kevin Bridges Chews Life - Wednesday 19 March, The Stand
His conversational style only serves to make his increasingly controversial punch lines more devastating.
Brimming with confidence, but with no hint of arrogance, Kevin Bridges is already a masterful performer - and he's only twenty-one. The man can barely put a foot wrong in front of a home crowd with his candid take on Glasgow's grimy underbelly. In one of several acerbic anecdotes he brilliantly dissects the foibles of his fellow Glaswegians, hounding racist taxi drivers who rant about immigrants not embracing the culture, while simultaneously "searching for a Greggs" whenever they're abroad. Bridges is West Scotland's Peter Kay, minus the rose tinted spectacles. Not for him are the quaint things dads do at discos, more the terrifying things that junkies do for a quick fix. His conversational style only serves to make his increasingly controversial punch lines more devastating. Even Madeline McCann jokes get a rapturous applause, albeit following an ominous silence in the set up. His only stumbling block may be that his gags are exclusively Glaswegian, but from where I sit Bridges has universal appeal. [Patrick Low]