Cat Laughs Festival: Paul Merton

If he told us once, he told us eight times (I counted): this was Paul Merton's first time doing solo stand-up for 10 years, and it sure did show in the first part of the act, as he clunked around to little effect. The Cat Laughs Festival presented him with an opportunity to road-test a work in progress - his new one-man show, which he will be taking to Edinburgh and, seemingly, all around the world later this year.

Interestingly enough, the last time Merton did stand-up was when he was just another performer doing the comedy clubs, so this extended, unsupported show was a brave move, given that he's now known as a portable sardonic television commentator.

It was a very different Merton who took to the stage last night. Gone for the most part are his trademark surreal flights of fancy and offbeat type of observation humour. In its place is a more theatrically based show which owes much to the sort of narrative devices employed by Spalding Grey and our own Owen O'Neill. Once this show has been honed to perfection, it has the potential to be a mini-classic.

The core of the material is a straight-faced account of the reasons why he had a nervous breakdown some years ago. Wryly observed and beautifully phrased, he thankfully stops short of any American-style "confessional"; instead, he merely describes what happened to him and why. His account of the hospital in which he was treated was a potential minefield, but he negotiated his way around the trouble spots with aplomb, mixing some intelligent moments about the nature of group therapy with some richly-comic asides.

He eased up on the firsthand accounts towards the end of the show and reverted to type with some astute remarks about the nature of being a television celebrity.

If you're looking for lugubrious one-liners or laugh-out-loud gags, look elsewhere: this show is a deeply resonant and thoughtful story of one man's experiences. The words on the large board beside him on the stage said it all: "Comedy is truth and truth is comedy." A magnificently mature and eccentrically entertaining show.