The Book Club

Ince easily has the most comic talent in the room, and leaves you wishing the others would all sod off and let him talk about crap books for the full hour

Review by Alison Lutton | 13 Aug 2007

If you like your pharmaceutically-specific medical romances set to acoustic death metal, The Book Club is for you. The brainchild of Fringe old-timer Robin Ince, the show’s basic premise involves the presentation of a selection of the most absurd books on offer in Edinburgh’s own Nicolson Street, charity shop mecca of the UK. These books, with titles including the fantastic What God does when women pray, are piled on a table onstage and constantly rifled through by Ince and his troupe of co-performers, giving the show an organic feel. Excerpts from the books – largely voiced with perfectly ironic intonation by Ince – are accompanied by opera singing, accordion playing and expressive (read manic) dance, sometimes all at once.

If The Book Club stuck to this, what it does best, it could easily be one of the most inventive shows on the Fringe. It is, however, an ‘anthology’ of comic performances: at times, it feels more like a job-creation programme for Ince’s mates. Some of the sketches which interrupt the main feature do work in their own right – gangly token antipodean Ashley is spot-on with his selection of favourite teenage reads. Others, such as Martin White and his sing-along cod-musical interlude, fail to live up to the club’s own high standards. As a compere, Ince just about manages to hold it all together, his interruptions always timely and pitch-perfect. Unfortunately, this only compounds the fact that he easily has the most comic talent in the room, and leaves you wishing the others would all sod off and let him talk about crap books for the full hour.