Edinburgh Round-Up: <br/>Jo Caulfield <br/>Dave Fulton <br/>Will Durst

Comedy: Jo Caulfield, Pleasance Above

Comedy: Jo Caulfield, Pleasance Above

By Fiona Sturges

If you gave me a penny for every time a stand-up started their Fringe show with, "Is there anyone here from Edinburgh?", I could have opened my own comedy club by now. Jo Caulfield's enquiries are more far-reaching, however – with her, it's Edinburgh, England, America, and "the rest of the world". With this icebreaker out of the way, Caulfield announces that she will be talking "mostly about myself". Her recent marriage to a Scot forms the backbone of the show, although she's not given to sentimentality. This is a woman who got married in New York a month after the terrorist attacks "because flights were dirt cheap".

Caulfield knows how to work a crowd. When she asks a whole family – mum, dad and grown-up daughter – how they each lost their virginity, her glee is palpable. But her material lets things down. Masturbation, men's obsession with remote controls, elderly mothers who talk through films – cutting-edge this ain't.

Venue 14: 20.05 (1hr), to 26 Aug (not 13), 0131-226 2151

Comedy: Dave Fulton, Assembly Rooms

By Fiona Sturges

As distinctive for his billowing locks as his caustic wit, Dave Fulton is in an adventurous mood this evening. Rather than trawl through the same old script, the Seattle stand-up lets the audience pick the subjects for discussion from a bag of marked poker chips. While this isn't as risky as one might hope – naturally, all his themes are rehearsed – it lends a degree of intrigue.

The first chip, entitled "Europe", leads to a vicious tirade against Parisians; the next, inscribed with the word "Africa", prompts scathing memories of a visit to Casablanca – "When I get back to America, I'm going to dig up Humphrey Bogart and kick him in the nuts".

Fulton's themes are hardly going to bring about a comic revolution, but the ferocity with which he delivers them makes him a rare treat.

Venue 3: 22.30 (1hr), to 26 August, 0131-226 2428

Comedy: Will Durst - The Pig in the Snake, Traverse

By Steve Jelbert

A frequent visitor over the years, the American stand-up Will Durst is well regarded for his acerbic analysis of US politics. So it's disappointing that, despite the wealth of material offered to him by the right's effective coup d'état in the 2000 election, and the most intellectually challenged president ever, he has become not just tentative, but downright resigned. Perhaps it's the insider status he now holds, which has seen him perform before two ex-presidents (Clinton laughed; Bush Sr was less sure), but this hour seemed almost self-censored.

As one who believes that anyone choosing to enter politics is mentally ill by definition, I might not fit Durst's target audience, but for entertainment's sake alone, shouldn't he be putting the boot in a bit harder? The occasional sharp line aside ("We suddenly realised that people watched Baywatch to see Americans drown"), these gags wouldn't raise eyebrows at the golf-club bar.