Nina Conti @ The Pleasance

This year's show from ventriloquist Nina Conti sees her with a handful of puppets, which start out simply until they evolve into her finest creation - Gran.

Sometimes her characters are very rude, since they often ask simple, direct questions and it's the childlike honesty of her characters which makes her show so funny. Conti herself, however, is never rude. She's lovely.
Perhaps too lovely, leading to what might perhaps be her only fault. When guest Kate Copstick comes on for a chat-show style interview with Gran, Conti is so nice that when Copstick's rambling becomes tedious, neither Conti reins her in nor does Gran prick her pomposity. This causes the show to sag in the middle.

However, it revives gloriously, as Conti shows off her quite considerable ventriloquism skills and brings us some quite hysterical moments of high comedy as well as beautifully nuanced pathos, all conducted with a great sense of self-awareness. Gran knows that her eyes are made of marbles, but as far as we're concerned she is a living, breathing, comedy goddess who we are very sorry to see tucked away by the end of the night.

Conti's quite good too.