Glenn Wool

If ever a comic had an appropriate surname, then it’s this surrealistic Canadian. You could knit a jumper with the majority of this set, but while it may be overflowing with material, give one of its many loose ends a tug and all the threads would come apart. To be blunt, the best bit is over before he has even sauntered onstage, with a magnificent moustachioed montage full of everyone you could think of in western popular culture that’s had a tiny rat growing above their top lip (evil or otherwise). It’s a hypnotic opening which is aided and abetted by a few moments taken up with a fruitless search for other mousers in the audience.

Billed as being a show about Wool struggling with his identity, it offers intriguing insights into the pitfalls of alcohol dependency but loses its way completely with what initially seemed like an aside about his search for adequate genitalia only to turn into the show’s beef. It’s neither funny nor particularly shocking and ends so weakly even he wonders whether it was worth the effort. Glenn Wool has a mighty show in him, but this torpid affair was not it. (Brian Donaldson)

Underbelly, 0870 745 3083, until 26 Aug, 9.40pm, £10–£12 (£8–£10).