Glasgow Comedy Festival

Glasgow Comedy Festival

Invoking the spirit of Jean Paul Sartre's "hell is other people", Natalie Haynes informs us "everyone outside this room is stupid and annoying", writes Beth Pearson. New mothers with giant prams are the first example. Haynes, not one for passive misanthropy, suggests asking them if they've heard about the link between cancer and big wheels. Or telling them you have meningitis, then coughing on their child.

Those complicit in health scares also fit into the stupid and annoying category. On the MMR and autism scare, Haynes thinks that an emotionally undemonstrative child who is good at sums is clearly preferable to one with measles, mumps or rubella (a bias soon emerges, as she confesses to being slightly autistic herself and gushes about her favourite prime number as apparent proof).

However, the title of this show is Watching the Detectives and the idea is that we need a TV detective to solve the problem of other people being stupid and annoying. It's a rather arbitrary device that temporarily removes any sense of continuity - what's Quincy got to do with anything? - until a race to the finish, where Haynes sews up the disparate themes of the show with the notion that the world would be a perfect place if we all lived in Diagnosis Murder. For instance, blind people wouldn't steal because cataract operations could be performed by the doctor character. It's amusing but feels a bit slap-dash. This isn't the only problem. Haynes is a bubbly autist; her harsh judgments are delivered with giggles and a high-pitched voice of disbelief. Sometimes this adds to the humour, for instance with her paedophile material; however, it often undersells the gag, the effects of which are all too plain in a theatre where two-thirds of the seats are unoccupied.