Damien Crow: The World According to Damien Crow

Anyone who recalls the Goths’ long dark reign of the Edinburgh underground—more specifically, the steps outside the chippy off Cockburn Street—will likely have cracked a joke or two at their expense. You had to laugh at the absurdity of hordes of non-conformist teens gathering in uniform and collectively bemoaning a cold-hearted, uncaring world, while their mums were all probably making them fish fingers for tea in cosy middle-class homes.

It’s this obvious irony around which promising young Scottish comic Chris Forbes wraps an hour of competent but fairly bloodless and uninspired character comedy. Six feet tall, dressed head-to-toe in black, his face caked white with make-up, Damien Crow is a misunderstood school age misfit from Milngavie. He listens to loud, sludgy music by bands you’ve never heard of, writes bad self-pitying poetry, fantasises about murder and suicide (and his step-mum’s breasts) and has nothing but unkind words for his father, despite sounding like a pretty generous and affectionate guy (“why can’t I have a regular Scottish dad who gives me a beating after a drink?”).

It’s neatly played by a very natural performer, but the material settles into the pattern of tame predictability , save perhaps for one cracker about Andy Murray as a frustrated Goth. An upbeat accordion-based finale finally kicks things in a weird and unexpected direction, but it's much too late. Crow won’t have you laughing much—a dark, black-souled cackle or otherwise—but he’s entirely capable of making you do something else most un-Goth like: smile.