Webster's Pictionary

Every year, during the first day of the Festival, something goes wrong. Though there are still a couple of days left before the Royal Mile becomes a no-go area, it now takes twice as much time to get from one end of the city to the other and, as a result, your intrepid reviewer is late for his first show.

It’s also the first day of the Festival for Gavin Webster, and things are only slightly better: his new show, Webster’s Pictionary, is getting off to a slow start.

Webster is trying out a new format this year: his show is unscripted with the material randomly prompted by a computerised Pictionary wheel. It is a format which the Geordie comic – who strongly resembles a fair-haired, slightly portly, Ray Liotta – is yet to fully settle into.

The main problem with the set is its stop-start nature – there is no natural flow or rhythm. While some jokes really hit the mark, many others just don’t work in the disjointed format, lacking context or adequate build up.

Though the randomly generated material is something of a mixed bag, he has a couple of set pieces that are genuinely funny – in particular his pre-recorded video segments show genuine creativity, although a couple do fail to impress.

Webster himself is a perfectly likable, enthusiastic performer and this is a show can only improve as time goes by while he, like the rest of Edinburgh, adjusts to Festival life. With time, this could easily turn into a decent, solid show.