Daft gag ragbag

'It was going to be called Unreliable At Best,' confides Josie Long, referring to her first Fringe show, for which she won the if.comeddie Best Newcomer gong last year.

On the basis of Long's hand-drawn pamphlets - sorry, 'official programmes' - and the fact that she helps usher the audience into this Pleasance sweatbox herself, Trying Is Good is a title far more suited to the fizzy 25-year-old.

Long's show is a captivating ragbag of dialogues, daft gags and pithy anecdotes, not unlike being regaled by a slightly eccentric, dearly-held friend.

She's no goof, though: it takes a certain imaginative rigour to devise a test to identify cyborgs based on whether they apologise to trampled snails. When she describes her younger brother as 'a skylight in a room you never knew existed', it's clear the same can be said for this pudding bowl-coiffed comedienne.

Until Aug 27 (not Aug 13, 20), Pleasance Courtyard, 7.15pm, £9.50 and £10.50.

Josie Long: Trying Is Good
Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh