Ruaridh Miller @ Gilded Balloon Patter House

Scottish comic Ruaridh Miller has a newfangled name, a strange relationship with football and an even stranger relationship with dogs. Autocorrect Thinks My Name is "Rubbish" starts with a quick routine about the spelling of Ruaridh and soon spirals into talks of class, sectarianism and gentrification. Along the way we are introduced to other themes: the world of Bosnian football teams, grumpy grandmothers and the gentrification of Leith. 

The routines are tight and charming. Miller is a relaxed storyteller, ambling through his polished anecdotes and sprinkling in little moments of wordplay or observations. The Edinburgh-centric routines garner a warm reaction from the local crowd and he seems perfectly comfortable going off-script and reacting to the room.

Miller’s smiling 'everyman' persona is a perfect vessel for observations about vapes, parks and pets, with each routine showing a knack for simple, relatable content, delivered with a smile. It may not be anything new or groundbreaking, but the steady flow of jokes and grinning charm of Miller feel as candid as a conversation around a pub table with an old friend. This persona works against him at points, as one set of routines about growing up middle-class is, confusingly, then immediately contradicted by another describing his working-class upbringing. By playing straight down the middle, Miller sacrifices any opportunity for a unique voice or angle on the world, more focused on general observations and basic concepts that draw the room together. 

It’s a reliable show held in a safe pair of hands. Any of his routines would fit comfortably into a twenty-minute set, but at the end of the hour it feels like there's something missing. 

Dependable, affable and harmless, with a couple of crowd-pleasing gags to round up the final stretch, we can’t help wishing Ruaridh took a swing and pushed it further. We’re still waiting to discover what it is exactly that marks this amiable comic as a unique experience amidst the Fringe.

---

Ruaridh Miller: Autocorrect Thinks My Name is "Rubbish", Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose (Penny), until 30 Aug, £11.50-13.50