Edinburgh Nights: Seriously daft fun in a fag-end of a venue

Arthur Smith: In and On Inverleith Putting Green

IT STARTED late, finished early, was lashed together with a series of gags Henry Kelly might think twice about using, and took place in the wasp-infested fag-end of Inverleith Park. Which makes the invariable success of Arthur Smith's irregular Edinburgh promenades - and last night's ramble was no exception - all the more delicious.

The adventure began in the taxi as you tried to explain to your driver why you and about a hundred others were descending upon a run-down municipal amenity, whose best feature is its graffito: "She was tall and lean and tarty, and she drove a Maserati." An embodiment of this demotic blazon (minus the car) then set the tone of the show by engaging with her audience in a fashion that entirely justifies this description.

But a joke transcribed is no joke at all, and this is especially so with Smith's appearances, which seem to ride on the sheer force of his personality.

What can be said is that when Smith himself appears, it is, notionally at least, to tell the tale of one Kinlock Anderson.

A long-dead civic bigwig, Kinlock lived to regret the day he turned down the chance to elope with his sweetheart, Morag McNeil, a woman, we're told, he romanced on these very putting greens.

Kinlock's story is just the pretext for some truly dreadful jokes. But you'll laugh yourself silly - largely because Smith has honed perfectly his "take-it-or-leave-it" louche, stoic persona. He'd like you to laugh, but he looks as if he couldn't give a damn if you didn't.

Deliriously stupid fun.