Fringe / Greg Proops

San Francisco's Greg Proops has been over here long enough now to work out what makes a British audience tick. Many's the visiting American stand-up who loses his way in a maelstrom of socio-political references.

Proops, on the other hand, has tapped into the British psyche enough to be able to stand back and deliver killer observations from the outsider's perspective while nevertheless absorbing a dollop of British culture en route. Take his line on the impossibility of getting served in a British restaurant after three on a Sunday. "Till I came here I thought Fawlty Towers was a comedy show. Now I realise it's a hard-hitting documentary."

There's a certain element of predictability (both he and fellow countryman Rich Hall match each other almost line for line on the Atlanta Olympics) and I could have done with a little less "audience-are-you-with-me?" patronising. But such is Proops's speed of attack that there's hardly time to reflect. For pure gags-per-minute consistency, he's hard to beat.

n Pleasance. To 31 Aug