Joe Bor: a study of embarrassment by a guy with two bumholes - The Jewish Chronicle

All comedians can have off-nights - you probably just hope it doesn't coincide with your efforts being reviewed.

For Joe Bor, the 2007 Jewish Comedy Factor winner and a Comedian of the Year 2009 finalist at the Leicester Comedy Festival, a nervy start in his Edinburgh debut solo show wasn't helped by a youngish, reserved audience who seemed collectively to be contemplating a bout of dental surgery rather than the end-of-the-pier humour they were being served up.

Performing his mixture of jokes, anecdotes and songs on embarrassing incidents with the aid of a caricature-filled flip-chart in an unpromisingly formal cocktail-bar venue might also not have helped.

Fast-talking, matey and confident, the stubbly Bor, 29, was at his best when hosting a "Guess the bum" game on stage, in which a blindfolded girl had to decide which was her boyfriend's rear out of the three in front of her.

But all too often, his study of embarrassment threatened to implode, with a sense of frustrated desperation evident as the double-bumhole joke merchant witnessed his jokes falling as flat as the "internal fart" he recalled having executed during a teenage date at a 1990s' staging of ITV's "Blind Date".

And the Jewish material was disappointingly cliched.