Television presenter and the subject of Confessions of a Sex Addict, Jeff Leach, brings us a stand-up show dealing with his experiences of addiction and reformation, and the hope that he can one day provide the genuine ‘boyfriend experience’. Unfortunately, the experience doesn’t quite do it for this audience, as a lack of material, weak characterisations, poor taste jokes and the odd multimedia clip fail to satisfy.

There appears to be a mismatch with Leach’s audience from the very start. A Justin Bieber parody doesn’t quite connect and only one person admitted to having seen his documentary. Leach also takes some easy shots at Samantha Brick, author of the notorious Daily Mail article, ‘Why women hate me for being beautiful’. The irony is that for someone who received hate mail in response to publicly discussing his problems he should really know better. A couple of abortion ‘jokes’ are met with near silence while recurring jokes about being gay are similarly wide of the mark.

The dearth of material becomes obvious when Leach descends into a few poor and overly long characterisations that quickly slip into stream of consciousness. At one point Leach asks himself, ‘How long is this going to last for?’ His reply: ‘Until it stops being awkward and becomes funny.’ Unfortunately that moment does not always arrive.

Leach does have some very funny lines and some of the audience participation receives strong laughs. Other aspects of the material have real promise but falter in the delivery, such as his friend’s misguided attempt at a romantic mix tape and the Republican politician also named Jeff Leach. It seems it is time for Leach to focus his energies on providing that genuine ‘comedy experience’. 

Jeff Leach: Boyfriend Experience

Gilded Balloon Teviot (Sportsmans)

Until 27 August, 21:30