Andrew Lawrence, Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh

Having been described, in a recent magazine article, as “up and coming”, despite a career lasting nine years so far, Andrew Lawrence is understandably put out. Luckily for us, it’s another green light for the rake-thin comic to see red for our entertainment.

The comic, who leaves others trailing in the wake of his misanthropy and nihilism, is in fine form. Recent years have seen him whip himself up into a rather formulaic frenzy, using duologue rants that isolated him from his audience. This year the suited and booted miserablist has paced and pitched his woe to near perfection, and is back to the form that first won him an Edinburgh Comedy Award nomination in 2007.  
 
“There are so many drugs in my system that I could be on the Chinese Olympic swimming team”, he notes of his health, but he’s still got the wherewithal to dish it out, most notably to tradesmen who arrive early and to those who parrot stock phrases such as “God moves in mysterious ways.” 
 
Like the evil and more confident twin of Frank Spencer, Lawrence finds it easy to lead audiences to the abyss of the human condition and then to laugh at it: many will find they have more common with him than they might have dared to admit. 
 
Til 26 August, 0131 556 6550