Tuesday’s show started well and got progressively better through the day.

“More poofery”

Like Richard Herring, Stewart Lee and Simon Munnery, David Benson is an act I see every year if he’s on. His shows tend to be gentle but entertaining, well-suited for mid-afternoon in a rainy Edinburgh, and he has a charismatic, conversational style that lends itself to whatever subject he chooses to cover.

David Benson Sings Noël Coward is this year’s show and it was the subject matter rather than Benson’s performance that let me down a little. He was more entertaining between songs than some of the songs themselves, although there were a few gems mixed in, particularly a “lost” song about the middle classes and an extra verse to Mad About the Boy.

“We’re the hip-op generation”

I didn’t realise when booking to see Barry Cryer and Ronnie Golden that it would be another song-based show, and I wondered in passing whether Coward, if around now, would also be penning songs about the Freedom Pass. (Probably not.)

73-year-old Barry Cryer is a national institution and trotted out various funny anecdotes between songs. He shared the stage with his 60-year-old junior Ronnie Golden, whose varied guitar playing, mimicry skills and huge vocal range were very impressive.

I’m always a little dismissive of comedy songs on the basis that you can get away with being less funny in song than in straight standup, and Barry Cryer’s stories were sometimes funnier than the songs either side. One slightly mean-spirited song didn’t impress me at all, but it was offset by the highlight, a particularly funny flamenco number. Overall, there were more hits than misses.

“Why is he on a unicycle?”

The Jonny and Joe Show, featuring Jonny Sweet and Joe Thomas, is at the anarchic end of the sketch show spectrum. Oxbridge graduates (would you believe it?) like Tommy and the Weeks (excuse for a plug: I saw their very good Edinburgh preview in London – go see) and with a similarly strong dynamic, their surreal show is a fast mix of fun sketches that come out of nowhere and are abruptly discarded as soon as they’re finished with.

While not often hysterical, the sketches were always amusing, the whole thing performed with marvellous precision and a consistently fun and flowery use of the English language. Jonny Sweet in particular seems blessed with the ability to make any physical action or line of dialogue funny just by his performance, while Joe Thomas’s stiller, slightly harsher character provides a good counterpoint. Despite being scarily young, both have made their TV comedy debuts and, based on this show, will go far.

You can watch some of their videos from last year on Project V.

“McCain’s not Able”

The last show of the day was Tina C., Christopher Green’s country singer creation, in Tick My Box, a rally for her campaign to be President of the US of A.

Green’s been playing Tina C. so long, it’s a polished performance, maintaining the character even when ad libbing (my question about sub-prime lending and the global economic crisis during the audience Q&A got a quick and funny response).

Complete with line dancing troupe The Tumbleweeds and mixing character standup with comic songs (including a duet with fellow country music spoofer Wilson Dixon) and obligatory audience participation (it’s a rally, after all), Tina C. makes for a fun end to an evening at the Festival.

I squeezed in two shows after getting to Edinburgh on Monday afternoon.

“I’d like to meet Gandhi. I think we’d have a lot to share”

The Headmaster’s Son is Richard Herring’s latest stand-up and, as the title suggests, takes as its theme his school years as the son of the headmaster. Very much in the style of his last show, The Headmaster’s Son takes a bit of time to get going, and peters off a little towards the end. It was educational though: some of his tales of school were sufficiently similar to my own that I figure there are certain traits that all geeky kids end up exhibiting.

Despite some very funny parts (several courtesy of his teenage diary) and although it’s worth seeing, this isn’t Richard Herring’s best Edinburgh show. Plus, he claimed to be four years old when ABBA won Eurovision while also telling us he’s 41 now, two facts which distracted me by their mutual exclusivity.

“Queens like poppers”

The comic play Elizabeth & Raleigh: Late But Live is written by Stewart Lee and stars Miles Jupp as Sir Walter Raleigh and Simon Munnery as Elizabeth I – the latter an amusing enough idea even before he enters the hall in full Elizabeth get-up and steamrolls through the audience because “queens only move in straight lines”.

Jupp’s Raleigh was an endearing and entertaining host, but the show is stolen by Munnery, in his pale slap and frightful wig. One set of jokes (possibly a League Against Tedium standard) I recognised from his Lee-directed BBC show Attention Scum! – but that’s not a criticism as they deserved another airing. Munnery embellished Lee’s script with various ad libs, setting both the audience and his co-star giggling.

With some brilliantly silly moments and an inventively staged recreation of the Spanish Armada, this show is highly recommended.

No time to write more than to say:

Tommy and the Weeks, 4.30pm, Pleasance Courtyard, final show is today (Monday). If you’re in Edinburgh, do go along.

I went along yesterday and it was very funny.

I’ll explain later.

American comedian Amy Lamé dropped me a nice email a few weeks ago mentioning that her show, Amy Lamé’s Mama Cass Family Singers (which I’ll refer to, for ease of typing if not ease of reading, as ALMCFS from now on), has a London run this month.

One of the highlights of my Edinburgh festival visits*, ALMCFS is a one woman show in which Amy recounts, with the assistance of family photos, video interviews and 1960s music, her life as a child star press-ganged into a Mamas and the Papas tribute band.

It’s funny, touching, and slightly mad. And there are sandwiches. It’s running at the Soho Theatre from the 15th to the 25th of this month at 9.30pm, and tickets, which you can book here, are £15.

*The other was the marvellous Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf

“David Benson – Why Pay More?” at the Pleasance is the third of David Benson’s one man shows I’ve seen at the Fringe, following last year’s “Conspiracy Cabaret” and 2004’s “Haunted Stage”. There is less of a central theme than to those shows , but once again Benson’s material is strongly autobiographical. It’s a mixture of songs and anecdotes, a deceptively gentle set with sudden and surprising moments of pathos. Benson is engaging and charismatic when himself and thoroughly convincing when he brings to life the various and varied characters in his stories. This is neither comedy nor theatre but an entertaing, thoughtful and enjoyable show.

The same day, I went to see “Think No Evil of Us: My Life with Kenneth Williams“, the award-winning show which brought Benson acclaim when he first performed it in 1996 and which has returned to the Festival for its tenth anniversary. (Five shows of the ten show run remain as the time of writing.) It’s a touching mixture of biography and autobiography, bounding from scenes from Williams’s life to scenes from Benson’s, from soliloquy to audience interaction, and from comedy to tragedy.

Benson’s definitive portrayal of Williams is uncanny and a little eerie, not so much an impersonation but a real recreation of his not especially likeable character. Benson shows off his skills further as the voices of Frankie Howerd, Maggie Smith and most of the cast of Dad’s Army make appearances too. But this funny, affecting show is about Williams and Benson – raw and personal for both of them – and ten years on there’s no question the Fringe First award it won was well-deserved.