Markus Birdman: Happily Ever After

After last year's show about Markus Birdman's stroke, which left him partially sighted, the universe has seen fit to grant him more pain for his Fringe show inspiration – a split with his partner of 14 years. Eight months on and the heartache hasn't healed but he is entertainingly philosophical, reflecting upon the failing marriage rate and his minister father's blessing of a lesbian union, mocking the institution while advocating a broadening of love's definition.

With anger management issues and his instinctive, lippy cynicism, relationship guidance was never going to work out well for Birdman. Employing it as a launchpad to make some sweeping statements about men and women, with his roguish, emotionally bruised and battered charm, he just about gets away with it, though generally, he focuses on personal experience. Open to the notion of one-night stands, he hasn't returned successfully to the bachelor lifestyle – his having a young daughter makes the 42-year-old twitchily uncomfortable about dating younger women.

But while it would be easy for Birdman to let self-pity and bitterness impinge, he's too accomplished a standup to take his eye off the punchlines. Each endearingly rendered assessment of love faltering or dying is peppered with a raft of elegantly witty, sardonic lines, chiefly at his own expense. This feels like a transitional hour while he reassesses his life and options, a lot of well-delivered routines strung together without any overarching insight. Still, you feel sure he'll come back stronger.