Sarfraz Manzoor: The Boss Rules

Objectivity can be a harsh mistress. Though one tries to keep personal prejudice from infecting the critical faculties, if someone had gone out of their way to design a theme for their show that would render your faithful correspondent helplessly biased, they couldn't have done a better job than Sarfraz Manzoor's paean to Bruce Springsteen. You either get The Boss or you don't. 

Audiences will quickly be divided between those nodding along with Manzoor's every breathless word of Bruce worship, and those who simply put up with it, indulgently or otherwise. Nevertheless, Manzoor's engaging, eloquent autobiographical lecture should find admirers everywhere, whether they have the good taste to be Springsteen fans or not.

Manzoor, a journalist and documentary-maker rather than a comic, begins by emphasising how The Boss Rules is not a comedy show, and should not be viewed as such. While this may be so, Manzoor still manages to be funnier than the majority of standups at this year's Fringe. Though Springsteen and his music are central to Manzoor's unfolding story—the Boss 'Rules' of the title are "like the Ten Commandments, but with guitar solos"—it also touches on growing up as a second-generation Pakistani immigrant in Luton (birthplace of the English Defence League), his marriage to a non-Muslim and the birth of his daughter.

Manzoor's personal narrative keeps the audience rapt, while the life lessons he draws from New Jersey's finest son never seem contrived, instead summoning a charming, even moving sense of how important music is to us while we're young.