Matt Green - Grow Up Green

Flicking through the seemingly endless pages of the Fringe comedy guide, you'll notice that pretty much every stand-up comic has decided to give themselves a title for their show.

In some cases, this title extends beyond the role of eye-catcher and becomes a theme. This is all very well if the jokes are built neatly around the idea in question, but frankly painful to watch if every comic narrative is awkwardly crowbarred into a theme that was neither interesting nor funny in the first place. Matt Green's show about "growing up" fits neatly into this category.

Green is definitely a nice guy. While the first half of his show contains a startling lack of punchlines, his set-ups are so well delivered that you'll perversely almost forgive him for not dropping any decent comic bombshells. Green's charisma is briefly dashed when he swerves off topic pretty drastically for a rant about religion that is not only out of place, but borderline offensive. It's only in the latter half of the hour when things really start to come together and Green actually musters some satisfying payoffs for his jokes.

His stories about Facebook abuse and fertility clinics create waves of laughter from an audience who barely broke a smile earlier in the show. Such was the power of this miraculous turnaround, his audience departed with a collective satisfied glow and a wave of admiring applause. There's no doubt he'll do well when he returns to the Fringe a little older and wiser.