Laura Davis @ Monkey Barrel

Laura Davis notices a kinship between comedy and poetry early on in Albatross, and the poetic sensibility evident here is just as strong as the comic one. The evening walks by the sea (with security detail, courtesy of her gull gang), the odd charity shop objects Davis muses over; there's a spaciousness and originality in their approach that's rather lovely.

Originally from Australia, Davis now lives in Edinburgh – too tired to leave after the Fringe, they stayed put. Life here is good, but, accustomed to more dramatic landscapes, they're chary of the honorific 'beach' for what Midlothian and Fife have to offer – 'it's not so much beach as where the land gives up'.

The disconnect from nature is one of the show's preoccupations, as is the rage that manifests both off and online – a rage Davis sees as borne out of a sense of hopelessness and overwhelm (climate crisis, the erosion of any concept of truth). They're not didactic: they know we know.

Davis chides a reviewer for describing the show's subject as loneliness and they're right: it's the more positive idea of solitude that seems the focus. We could even say that Davis's solitude, and the cultivation of attention it allows for, models a better way of living – a kind of answer, in fact, to the pathologies they're observing.

If there's a kinship between comedy and poetry, there's also a fine line between stand-up and exhortation, and Davis is not afraid to cross it. Their earnestness is not a failing and there's no doubting their authenticity, but a greater sensitivity to the dramaturgy of the event would help. The sea captain gusto may be slightly one-note, but the atmosphere is there in the presence of the sea, and the urgency there in all those poor dead birds.

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Laura Davis: Albatross, Monkey Barrel (MB2), run ended
lauradaviscomedy.com