He jitterbugs on to the Fringe Bar’s small stage, makes like a creepy stalker and goes on to variously characterise himself, throughout his hour, as lovely, a wild dog and Captain Cool. What with all his winningly self-aware riffing and scatting in Jazz comedy style, it’s up to us to work out who or what Guy Montgomery really is and how much is as spontaneous as it seems.

Curiosity leads him to riff on the Encyclopaedia industry. Contemplating God and his flatmates leads to a revelation of how natural disasters happen. His love of sport focuses on post-match interviews. There are riffs on carbohydrates, Wellington, time and job titles. 

Montgomery generates much of his comedy by juxtaposing the great and extraordinary with the mundane and ordinary. And having introduced someone or something, he refers back and reincorporates. This creates a sense of coherence that counterpoints his ‘bad dog’ claim that he will “lose cohesion in the middle of the show because I don’t care about your rules.”

He also uses bread as an analogy, aligning himself to a specific type of bread that manifests as a deliciously pungent reality to complete the show. His style may be relaxed but he doesn’t loaf on the job. You could say he’s on a roll.

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