Adolf Hitler and Mother Teresa Walk into a Bar

The riveting name of this show alone could explain the near-capacity audience in the little free venue in Edinburgh's backlands. Steve Hill – a huge, scary-looking, glabrous youth – quickly explains the reasoning behind it. He was portraying the evil one "a bit like Adolf Hitler" and his co-star, incessantly sunny Laura Rugg, was the good one, rather like the Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.

Good and evil would do a half-hour set each and the audience would then vote on which path to follow. So all is fine and dandy, but the duo failed to play their roles. Hill tries way too hard to be evil, but slips into an anti-racism rant, while Rugg is at times more gratuitously offensive than her opponent, naturally producing some very sick lines and absolutely nothing like the beatified nun.

That said, it is a crowd-pleaser. The audience was completely engaged by the performance and even warmed to the random banter between Rugg and her lairy former flatmate, who kept heckling. But, as a single piece, it is crying out for good production and some leavening of the marauding egos of the two protagonists.

While these desperados should be saluted for making their Edinburgh dream come true, filling a free venue with people and laughter, they come across as two bumpkins who have been to drama school and are now cheerfully looking forward to a life of self-unemployment. Yet there is a kernel of talent there – if only Rugg and Hill could put more thought into how to deploy it.