Henry Paker: Cabin Fever

For up-and-coming comics a month in a Portakabin parked outside the Pleasance Grand can be a sobering experience, as your place in the industry pecking order stares you grimly in the face. Henry Paker has embraced these insalubrious surroundings, however, and fashioned a show that basks in the claustrophobia of cramped temporary accommodation. "I’m going loopy," is the overall message, "and you’re stuck here with me."

That loose setup is really just a platform for Paker to embark on a series of free-floating observations and elaborate audience interactions, but as the rain beats down on the cabin roof we begin in a more down-to-earth fashion. The Edinburgh public are in denial about the quality of their weather, he ponders, but invariably live in buildings with wonderfully high ceilings. Which brings us back to the low, flat reality of this one.

From there we’re on a trek up Kilimanjaro, then back to the ups and downs of Paker’s love life and his preference for meeting internet dates in the woods. It’s hard to believe this tall, charming chap with a GSOH struggles quite so abjectly with the opposite sex, but such humiliations do at least provide the grist for some fine physical comedy.

The more abstract asides veer a little too closely to the canon of the sacred Izzard on occasions, and a few in the front row stare on with stony-faced bemusement – but perhaps that's just the thought of venturing outside again. There are far worse places to be than a Portakabin with Paker.