Maier's made his Mark

He's one of the surest performers around, so Mark Maier can afford to take a few risks with this run at the Soho Theatre. One of those comics who's always working, he's honed his mirthful miserabilism over years on the circuit. This show, though, sees the Comedy Store regular take a sidestep from straight stand-up to show off his character-comedy credentials as Roni Shimoni, an Israeli soldier turned London tour guide.

The rest of the show is bolstered by a crack line-up of comic actors - Jeremy Swift, David Cann (the older one from JAM) and Chris Green (best known as drag act Tina C) - who flesh out Maier's imaginings. Often dead-pan in his stand-up style, here he moves a step closer to complete inertia by joining the cast in a series of monologues as inanimate objects. Anyone who heard Maier's bizarro Radio 4 series Quando Quando Quando won't be totally surprised to hear that the characters include a discarded felt-tip pen and a grain of sand.

Lastly, there's a chance to see a rehearsed reading (ie scripts in hand) of a new sitcom that Maier intends as a blokey antidote to Sex And The City and Bridget Jones's Diary. Bachelor Boys is about four men in Newcastle who carry on living together after leaving university. With emotions, too, we're told. Men? Emotions? Now that is taking a risk.