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	Gilded Balloon Teviot (venue website) Theatre 3-9, 11-16, 19, 29 Aug, 2:00pm-3:15pm; 20-28 Aug, 2:00pm-3:05pm Reviewed by Liv Watson
Recommended for age 14+ only.

If jokes such as ‘take it up the mutthole’ are your thing, you’re in for a treat with the three-man show Lights, Camera, Walkies! If they are not, which I suspect may be the case for many, prepare to be slightly underwhelmed by the hour-long set from BBC sitcom competition finalist Tom Glover.

The plot is fairly straightforward: some Hollywood movie types are left in the lurch by the A-List star of their new film, and propose instead that a dog take his place. Cue two dog-owners seeking to have their own dog cast as said star. It’s not that this is a particularly bad storyline. The characters are bizarre enough to have some credibility as Hollywood hangers-on, and in any case the twists and turns that good comedy can take means that practically anything goes when it comes to making people laugh.

Instead, it is the script itself that lets the performers down: it is rather flat, over-reliant upon crudity, and about as subtle as a pooper-scooper. One repeated joke, revolving around the wife of one of the dog-owners being treated like a disobedient mongrel, is neither a necessary nor a particularly amusing addition. It is made clear from the start that the couple have an ‘owner-pet’ relationship and, in case you still weren’t sure, she is helpfully wearing a hat with dog ears for almost the entire performance.

Her husband, owner of dog actor Juliet, is highly strung, highly xenophobic and also highly homophobic into the bargain. One snippet involves him shouting ‘Herrooo’ instead of ‘Hello’ at the Korean director, and whilst this could be forgiven as being part of his role, its mild offensiveness is compounded by the fact that the character of said Korean director is highly stereotyped anyway.

Despite all this, the trio perform with gusto, and as a result the show makes for a lively hour of raucous behaviour from a troop of increasingly desperate and harried characters – including a foul-mouthed Texan millionaire, a lesbian director, a perverted inspector, and the gum-chewing agent of the original (non-canine) star of the movie. The Hollywood caricatures, though distasteful, are probably fairly accurate. As it stands, the show is rather disappointing… but some refinement of the script could make this play far more intelligent, far less simplistic, and far more amusing as a result.