Rhod Gilbert and the Award-Winning Mince Pie - Pleasance Cabaret Bar One of the shows that the comedy clubs of Kingston, Chiswick and Wandsworth was privy to several times in the run up to Edinburgh was Rhod Gilbert and the Award-Winning Mince Pie.

Rhod's show about his 4am nervous breakdown at Nutswood service station - triggered by the aforementioned pie - has been getting five-star reviews (including from comedy bible, Chortle), but for me this particular pie was a little flabby.

And I can't help but feel that reviewers may have been lulled into amnesia by the excellent ending, with goes like this: Out of petty, but funny, revenge towards a rugger bugger heckler who Rhod endured but then kinda ironically befriended, he invited the heckler to come and visit him in Wales, giving phony directions to a non-existent village called Llanbobl. He then awaited with a car full of mates and a video camera to let the schadenfreude commence.

It's the Big Finish, and a great one, but it masks a lot of average material, which only occasionally comes alive when Rhod's motormouth flies through the gears.

He doesn't quite achieve the Michael Douglas, Falling Down-style tension build-up he wants, and the denouement of the tale - when he demands to know which award the pie, which is the sole foodstuff left in the entire service station, won - is a bit of a damp squib, with no real pay-off.

The extended tangents, such as the tribulations of being in a highly sexual relationship with a 23-year-old (Rhod's about 40), aren't quite saved by the occasional cracking line.

It is a well-crafted show by a comic who's slightly shambolic schtick belies a very controlled, clever performer, it's just the material which lets it down. Nice after taste, shame about the filling.

Three stars