Richard Herring
****
Stewart Lee
****

Richard Herring has been coming to Edinburgh for two decades, doing sketches, plays and cod-lectures, but his latest stand-up show, Oh F*ck, I'm 40, is his most successful yet.

It's not remotely cerebral, just a heartfelt assessment of what it is like to have a middle-aged body and puerile mind.

The scruffy commitment-phobe crams his set with a dense mix of pungent one-liners and extended examples of his kidult antics. He still feels 20 - "except when I'm walking upstairs" - but knows that time's winged chariot is about to mow him down.

So who can blame him for wanting to cling on by taking up skateboarding and wearing paunch-revealing T-shirts?

There is room for a seize-the-day moral, too. Though not before our hero has confessed to brawling badly in a Liverpool street with an academic, had an exquisitely sarcastic dig at Ricky Gervais and slotted in a topical stab at Chris Langham, which prompted gasps but mostly guffaws. Herring may be past it as a man, but as a comedian he is at his peak.

Herring's erstwhile partner Stewart Lee never fails to be interesting. His latest show, 41st Best Stand-Up Ever, is not quite his finest hour, but it is still a dazzling monologue skewering television, celebrity culture and Tom O'Connor.

Lee is at the Soho Theatre from 13 November, so expect further deconstruction of stand-up's finest deconstructor then.

• Until 27 August (www.edfringe.com).