Jim Campbell: Nine Year-Old Man

The Fringe rarely lacks a surfeit of comedians who appear to be stumbling through some kind of second childhood, but self-awareness of one's arrested development seems to be more of a theme than ever this year. Perhaps its the infantilisation of our culture, or the fact that the recession and recent government policies have made the experience of youth more brutally unpleasant than usual. Whatever the reason, the struggle to grow up, or a resistance to doing so, has been given centre stage by much of Edinburgh's class of 2012.

Jim Campbell should arguably be at the head of that crowd, since he has found a happy equilibrium between an often well-founded fear of the real world and a witty, literate means of expressing it. As a stranger in the strange land of adulthood, Campbell admits that the show is part of his plan to become a functioning grown-up. Whether he succeeds or not, the results on stage can be considered a modest triumph.

Campbell's routines run through some fairly banal subject matter—the perils of being single versus "smug couples," the unattainability of manic pixie dream girls, dealing with an ex-girlfriend's somewhat odd religious beliefs and tales from his days at the job centre—but does so with a refreshing lack of misanthropy, so when he does unsheathe the cynicism, it's all the more effective. Though occasionally too polite for his own good, Campbell displays talent and intelligence, not to mention some unexpectedly proficient rap battle skills.