Danielle Ward In Glorious Technicolor, Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh

(Avalon)

After a slightly torpid start, Danielle Ward's decision to tell us breathlessly everything that's inside her head pays off.

It's a similar trick to that played by her contemporaries Josie Long and Robin Ince, acts who say: "Here's something that I've noticed and enjoyed; you will, too."

Unlike Long, who relies on the poetry of the situation to provide humour, Ward crafts actual jokes. She's the "Nicolas Anelka of lovemaking", apparently, because of her apparent lack of interest in the process.

She tells us that she has a phobia of flying and sharks, which explains her aversion to West Side Story, and she thinks she has found the perfect analogy for everything using the imagery of a giant bear and a slightly racist pork pie.

In the mêlée of random subjects on her mind, Ward dwells longest for her fruitful routines on the subjects of decapitation and conjoined twins. Regarding the former, she cites the story of a drink driver who hasn't noticed that his friend has literally lost his head and imagines him saying: "Weren't you wearing a hat earlier?"

Her final routine about an impromptu striptease, performed when she found herself doing a comedy gig in a dodgy pub, is a nice flourish to wrap up a set that was threadbare in some places but flashy in others.

To 24 August, except 15 (0131-556 6550)