My new take this year is that no room with a balcony should be allowed to be a Fringe venue. Especially not for a show like The Bench, which really does require the audience to buy in and cohere together. Instead, it’s too easy for those behind me in the balcony to tune out and just start talking to each other, in a way that simply wouldn’t happen in, I don’t know, MB4. Still, we are where we are, and for the most part the audience are on board with The Bench. I’ve seen this in WIP form two or three times (it’s easy to lose track) over the last couple of years, and it’s a thrill to see it in broadly final form. An ever spiralling web of distractions and tangents that combine to paint a slightly charming picture of the parochial life. This kind of thing is, of course, laser targeted to Wozniak’s style - bumbling but clinical in manner and phrasing. So much fantastic comedic world building, and a pleasure to exist in it for an hour.