Review by Jay Richardson

Foregrounding the dream logic of his unique style, Will Franken's latest outpourings from his subconscious are as dazzling as ever; his chameleonic ability to inhabit so many characters in his one-man sketches and effortlessly segue from one persona to another with limber, mischievous wit is an marvel to behold.

What prevents this being a smash is the cynicism underscoring what's otherwise a joyous romp. Ostensibly beginning at the Fringe, as so many dreams do, a hack comic shares with an unimpressed interviewer how he's padded out his Jongleurs set with a catchphrase. Noting that the start of the show is always the trickiest aspect to get right, can't stop Franken sounding bitter here about less talented contemporaries receiving the breaks while he's still toiling in a dank cave.

None of which ought to matter, for an intriguing note of genuine spite to leaven the surrealism, if it didn't preoccupy the American so much and compel him towards cliché of his own. Much has been made of the 'dead dad' festival show fashion, certainly a few successful careers. And it's reflective of a wider trend, he reflects, whereby the artificial addition of emotion to a show elevates it from four to five stars. Fair comment maybe.

Nevertheless, there's a sneeriness here that plays to the snobbery of informed comedy fans in the room, not least as his alternative history of Just The Tonic's loved/loathed caverns and hyperbolic, US-style sports commentary on the festival, are decidedly mixed in tone. And crucially, when he unveils his own dead dad scenario, it's one of the least effective sequences in the hour, one glorious gag about the seriousness of his father's plight notwithstanding.

This is a great pity because Franken is the artist he projects himself as, establishing themes and correspondences between sketches that have the patterns of music; callbacks that operate on a deeper, vaguer and more disturbing psychological level than is the norm; all condensed in a meticulous script where the jokes are fine-tuned for eliciting maximum laughter.

He channels The Beatles through the era of Sergeant Pepper and even before, to when they're re-imagined as struggling open-mic comics, their great aspirations in contrast to their flat, Scouse vowels. Franken personifies the Sixties as a wild and crazy beatnik through the testimony of a rock 'n' roll fellow traveller. It's a wonderfully over-the-top creation eclipsed only by his portrayal of Sigmund Freud as a sex-obsessed hipster-pimp, for whom everything always comes back to ‘the pussay!’ Subtler is the old-fashioned Irishman, thrown out by his wife and repairing to the pub, with no time for modern temptations yet unable to leave the boozer until he's tried them.

As ever, Franken reveals a wonderful ear for the essence of believable dialogue. And two of the show's stand-out sketches couldn't appear more straightforward on the face of it – a conference call between three co-workers that goes precisely nowhere and a jealous, unhinged boyfriend demanding to know ‘are you fucking her?!’ of an entire office.

There's satirical intent too, reasonably effective when applied to Scottish Independence and the Occupy movement. But it's devilishly well accomplished with the reasonable priest who must contend with a Gregorian chorus doubting Christian dogma and venturing the relative merits of Islam. Elsewhere though, Franken is just daft for the sake of it, and that works equally well.

There's no obvious reason why the American hasn't broken bigger since first appearing on the Fringe. But it seems that he's settled for marginalised status by having one too many sly digs at the industry.

Review date: 6 Aug 2014
Reviewed by: Jay Richardson
Reviewed at: Just The Tonic at The Caves