Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Musical comic Grant Buse is blessed with rock-star looks, a pleasant voice, and a gentle presence that has the audience eating out of his hand.

It’s difficult to do a show about nostalgia without invoking over-used notions of it ‘not being what it used to be’ or considering that in 20 years’ time today’s horrors will be the good old days – but this audience was on board with this easy route in right away.

He delivers a set of uncomplicated, amusing homages –much of it based not on music but 1990s television shows such as Friends and Sex And The City, and he assumes that familiarity with old ads for ice lollies will immediately make you want one.

When it comes to his original songs, the tunes are a bit simple and samey – he could busk these the world over and do well with them. But, being accessible is the name of the game, and he has the audience joining in with call and response before you can say ‘Sweet Caroline’.

He has a slightly affected, TV presenter delivery that seems to hypnotise the audience into compliance. It means he ends up with not one but two people joining him on stage for a singalong to his first rewrite, Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, with the usual half-mocking, half-encouraging joshing. However, the archness makes this oddly impersonal, it’s as though he is already on television and removed from the room.

So far, so MOR easy-listening. It is easy to envisage this working anywhere there’s an audience who want a relaxed comedy evening, and it would surely be a gift to the cruise circuit, if he substituted some of the riper terms.

With five minutes to go, he lets rip with a more physical routine which is an utter surprise, sending the audience out pumped. This show is a crowdpleaser; you don’t need to have a streak of nostalgia for the 1990s, as Busé has a broad appeal that will work with everyone from children to Nannas.

• Grant Busé: SentiMENTAL! is on at Gilded Balloon Teviot at 8:30pm

Review date: 21 Aug 2022
Reviewed by: Julia Chamberlain
Reviewed at: Gilded Balloon Teviot