Victoria Falconer @ Heroes, Spiegelyurt

Before you’ve even stepped inside the snug but welcoming Spielgelyurt, Victoria Falconer is already on the pavement outside, charming passersby into her variety show through the strength of personality alone. Once inside, she unpacks the title of her show Oxymoron by explaining the inbuilt contradiction of performing solo in a room accompanied by an audience – how can you be on stage alone when you’re surrounded by people? As if to demonstrate, Falconer spends most of her time playing and storytelling all around this small folkish venue, getting intimate with her small crowd and making connections wherever possible.

An Australian with Filipino heritage, Falconer discusses the difficulties of growing up feeling ethnically "different" in small-town Oz, and we play a raucous round of "what are some terrible names for people with mixed ethnicity?" with decidedly non-PC results.

As a musical performer, she’s excellent – whether covering Tom Waits on accordion or explaining how to play the saw, and Falconer enlists the audience's help in trying to develop a new funny song as the show progresses through the Fringe. Injecting comedy into the cabaret, however, doesn’t succeed quite as well. An awkward tonal shift involving miming oral sex on musical instruments isn’t quite what this audience was expecting, and the subsequent anecdotes about her sexuality suffer from a lack of focus or real comedic bite. It’s a lovely place to spend an hour with some lovely company though.

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Victoria Falconer: Oxymoron, Heroes, Spiegelyurt, until 26 Aug, 6:20pm, £5/PWYW

Scroll on to read more of The Skinny's 2018 Edinburgh Fringe comedy reviews; click here for a round-up of all the best reviews from this year's comedy and theatre programmes