‘Mitch Benn: The Lehrer Effect’ (Venue 302, until AUG 25th)

“It’s a fast-paced, blend of showmanship and showcasing that is, most importantly, properly entertaining and worthy of its august subject.”

Mitch Benn should be made to stand in the arrivals hall at Heathrow, Gatwick, or Turnhouse and welcome people into the country. He is a national treasure forged in the Bedlamic crucible of Edinburgh in and beyond the Fringe. His voice is possibly probably the finest vocal instrument this side of Brian Blessed. As one of the two most admired comic songsters of the current age, who better than Benn to deliver a 60-minute lecture on the wonder and wonderosity of the late, great Tom Lehrer?* Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq., perhaps, but Bedford’s own was too busy elbowing your not especially humble correspondent in the ribs and making shushing noises during all my best singing along – like he was Maturin meeting Aubrey.

*Leher was the latter, but not quite yet the former when the curtain went up on the night of 26 July at Bedfringe.

Articulate, intellectual, sceptical, musical. If you need to be sold on Tom Leher there’s a chance you cannot be redeemed for a pocket full of winning lottery tickets. Have you been living under a rock since 1944 – when Lehrer first put notes to paper with his “The Subway Song”? HCCKKCC PW if you didn’t know that or that there have been 16 new elements discavard since 1959.

This is a show that rests on zero laurels, Benn’s or Lehrer’s. It’s a fast-paced, blend of showmanship and showcasing that is, most importantly, properly entertaining and worthy of its august subject. Here’s a show that has ‘regular retirement cruise ship gig’ written all over it. Lehrer recently placed all of his songs in the public domain, so we can expect a tribute act or three down the line. Will they have this pace, this energy, this level of insight? Glass coffin / remains to be seen.

Come for the nostalgia. Stay for the freshness. Get your leather elbow-patched coats on and go see this!