Freak Show

The freaks we are about to gawp at are "mad, magical, and just plain monstrous," says a smarmy circus barker with a shit-eating grin. If only.

These young thesps are from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, who are also doing Avenue Q up on the Mound. They struggle manfully to energise this misconceived show. These are freaks lacking proper freakiness; they're mostly just a bit sad. Where's the fun in that? The Unbreakable Man lollops around, apparently lobotomised but clearly as frangible as the next man. The next man turns out to be the Missing Link – another ordinary-looking bloke. At least give him some cartoony sideburns or something. Each freak sings a drab song, accompanied by a small group of musicians, about how difficult it is being a freak. The other freaks watch or dance emotively.

If I go to a freak show I don't expect to see emoting. I want to see some freakiness.

Frustratingly, the show passes up a good opportunity to end on a high, after the best of the musical numbers: the enjoyably raucous waltz sung by the World's Most Beautiful Woman. Everybody claps and gets ready to leave.

Not so fast, audience!

The circus barker's voice emerges from the other side of the stage, repeating the lines from the start. Now we're backstage, watching the fractious freaks complain about their lot. It ends with a song about how it's wrong to judge people for being freaks or something. That's right, things got meta. Did they have to?