Director Guy Masterson is building a useful ensemble company of stand-up comics acting in modern American classics. Two years ago, he started the trend with Twelve Angry Men, and last year cast One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a hugely successful star vehicle for Christian Slater. This year's Fringe hot ticket, meanwhile, is The Odd Couple, starring Bill Bailey and Alan Davies.
Neil Simon's 1965 play is best known in its film version made three years later, with Walter Matthau as the divorced, sportsobsessed slob Oscar and Jack Lemmon as his uptight friend Felix. They are thrown together as flatmates when Felix's wife throws him out and what follows is a study of a "marriage" with mutual needs, bickering, silences and sulks.
Masterson has not gone for any radical reinterpretation of Simon's comedy, but rather lets the sparkling script do the talking - and it's a treat to be reminded of how good it is.
Bailey - in Hawaiian shirts and messy hair - is inspired casting, instantly rubbing out any mental images the audience may have of Matthau when he comes on stage. The supporting cast, too, are uniformly good, with Lizzie Roper and Owen O'Neill particularly memorable.
Davies, however, is atrocious, as anybody who has ever watched him impersonate a plank of wood on BBC's Jonathan Creek will know. He is to acting what McDonald's is to haute cuisine and Bailey deserves a special award for being able to play so convincingly opposite him. Davies's accent, too, is dire.
Katy Tuxford's meticulous 1960s Americana design - all plastic furniture and garish decor - is also let down by Davies. Felix, who is supposed to be neat to the point of anal, appears with foppish curls that kill at least two jokes stone dead. Did Masterson not suggest he visit the barber?
The Odd Couple is already on the way to breaking box-office records at the Assembly's glorious new space added this year, in the old Scottish Parliament building. It's not great theatre, but an enjoyable two hours nonetheless.
Until 29 August. Information: 0131 226 2428.
