Hoot on the Pea Green Boat

Stewart Lee is currently directing Jerry Springer - The Opera, which opens at Nicholas Hytner's brave new National in April. Maybe the mainstream will make this Fringe veteran take his eye off his own stage career, which would be a shame, because for more than a decade, Lee has been an innovative and challenging comedian. Ricky Gervais recently acknowledged his influence, which these days is humour's equivalent of a Papal blessing.

As the title suggests, the basis for Lee's Battersea work is Lear's nonsense poem. After his initial preamble he sets about deconstructing this rhyme, taking his cue from being puzzled by the idea of an owl getting into a boat with its natural predator, never mind the fact that neither eat honey nor have the opposable thumbs that would enable them to open the honey jar.

Over an hour, Lee spins obscure Victorian history into a slide-illustrated shaggy cat story that takes in writing a film treatment of Lear's life for Ray Winstone and the saga of ongoing plumbing problems in his own Stoke Newington flat. Owl pellets drop into the mix around here as a metaphor for modern diaries. These disparate elements are wittily woven together by a bearded John Dowie, who reads Lear's diary and apes Winstone's cockney growl. Ambient cello from Jane Watkins lends the show an atmospheric edge.

All the ingredients are there for success, except a central performance from Lee. The likeable stand-up is so understated that he is almost cast adrift, upstaged by the intelligence of his ideas. Where else on the stand-up circuit would references to Paolozzi and Deayton rub shoulders? This is certainly a quirky and imaginative chamber piece. A little more charisma and it would be an absolute hoot.

Shows run 7-9, 14-16 February. Box office: 020 7223 2223.