Review by Steve Bennett

The first ten, 15 minutes of visiting American comic Julian McCullough are tough going.

After the usual touristy observations of Edinburgh looking like Hogwarts (albeit with a strong payoff), he starts his story proper about how he was a loner as a kid, obsessed with books about The Babysitters’ Club, had artsy, hippy parents – pause to laugh at their wedding photo – and was saddened to have to leave San Francisco for the backwater of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, just as he was coming of age.

It’s unexceptional stuff, a mild conversational wit, light on punchlines, and indeed punch, as we trot through minor personality quirks and gentle nostalgia for things we never remember, such as the sitcom Full House.

There’s occasionally an entertaining idea, such as his parents hallucinating on mushrooms when they were trying to babysit, but also less interesting tales like having to sell a prized baseball card to afford a High School date, which doesn’t have an instant resonance with British audiences, although it shouldn't seem quite so alien as it seems here.

The idea underpinning the episodic storytelling of Dream Girls is how he had a habit of falling for fictional personalities he projected on to women without considering what they were really like. And as McCullough moves up to more serious early-adult relationships where he has a more self-aware viewpoint, the comedy gets more involving too.

His Alice In Chains-loving Goth phase was the most fruitful when it comes to comedy fodder, as his penchant for vulnerable and damaged women he’d hope to ‘save’, led him to make huge mistakes, each one funnier than the last. In retrospect, that is, they would have been variously terrifying or soul-destroying at the time.

By this point, with more substance to work with, McCullough’s relaxed storytelling comes into its own, with the authenticity of the stories adding to his innately pleasant demeanour. Despite that screwed-up background, he’s an affable level-headed everyman on stage – though the very fact he’s a comedian might suggest that’s only a veneer.

Building up great head of steam means the show ends substantially stronger than it began – though his best story is actually unrelated to the main thrust, an hilarious tale of a rush-hour bus trip in New York, where he now lives. There are some solid storytelling chops on display here, but he takes his tie showing them off.

Review date: 18 Aug 2014
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard