Sarah Millican
Pleasance
***

Sarah Millican might be playing the same thimble-sized hut as at last year's Fringe, but she has come a long way in 12 months.

A panel-show regular who can hold her own in televison’s testosterone-fuelled bear-pit, this deceptively soft-spoken Geordie excels at being smart, risqué and witty, a marketable package indeed.

Her new show, Typical Woman, dabs a thin coat of high-concept gloss on comedy’s ubiquitous gender debate template.

Millican is the kind of thoroughly modern complex feminist who gets offended when a man admires her breasts but is quietly flattered that he has admired them.

She hates being categorised as a “typical woman”, while confessing she cannot nail a mirror onto the wall.

Instead she puts a mirror up to her fans’ lives, spinning out saucy stories about her own boyfriend that everyone relates to and reeling in the audience with intimate front-row chat.

Though the latter might be harder in the future when she is inevitably playing big theatres.

If the terrain occasionally feels well-trampled, Millican’s expert gift of the gab lifts it way above the norm.

Jon Richardson
Pleasance
****

Jon Richardson is another comedian gigging in a shoebox here yet destined for showbiz big-time.

In This Guy At Night, Richardson reflects on his OCD-ish quest for perfection.

Life never matches his exacting standards so on nights off he stays in watching DVDs.

In fact his ideal first date would be watching a DVD indoors — there is no point splashing out in case it does not last.

A flawed individual perhaps, but a near-perfect set.

Until 30/31August. Information: 0131 226 0000. www.edfringe.com.