It’s been a while since Mark Little has appeared on the Fringe.  About seven years to be precise.  You would think that he would have been working on his act, honing his material and developing his craft to bring something professional and entertaining to Edinburgh.  But much like his shows title “The Bullshit Artist”, he’s basically conned his audiences into parting their cash for this half-baked excuse of a show.

Little will forever be known as Joe Mangel, the affable character on the sit-com Neighbours.  It’s been over three decades since his three-year stint ended on the show, but he is indelibly marked as Joe.  The crowd is peppered with the middle age who fondly remember the character and Little does his best to wring out the sympathy for the character even stopping the show to ask if anyone has a question about the character.  This is probably the highlight of the show.

His ‘show’ is basically 40 minutes of build up and then 15 minutes of political preaching that has no message, no context and basically no point.  I thought the whole thing was some kind of joke, that it was an elaborate ploy or a ruse, but no, he had nothing.  The thing is Little has been on the stage for several decades.  It does show through in his confident and easy manner on stage, but the utter lack of material is astonishing, it’s like your watching a warm up act for a show that never starts.

Mark Little: The Bullshit Artist

Assembly George Square

Until 27 August, 10:20pm