Gabriel Bisset-Smith Tells the Most Original and Funny Joke in the Universe!

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The first 15 minutes of Gabriel Bisset-Smith's show could well be the best 15 minutes of any show at the Fringe this year. It's electrifying. There's dancing, gunfire, standing ovations, crowns, audience participation, a singalong to Robbie Williams’s ‘Angels’ and his gran. It is incredibly funny.

It turns out to be very difficult to follow such an opening but he gives it a good try, moving on to the story of ‘the joke’. No spoilers but the joke itself may not actually be all that's claimed in the title. This show is all about how he decided he needed to come up with something new and original and his re-enactments of the journey he took to get there.

Bisset-Smith is magnetic. He asks the audience to do something and they willingly go for it. This is just as well as he regularly pulls people from the front row up on stage to help him act out the mini skits that make up this hodge-podge affair.

The show has a persuasive narrative, but it's heavily reliant on a projector operated by an offstage techie, with slides, sound effects and film clips forming an integral part of the show. It's entertaining stuff but slows down the action and starts to feel worryingly like filler, marring an otherwise very entertaining hour.