There are over 700 shows at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe which fit into the 'standard stand-up comedy' category, but what if you want something a bit different than that? One offering that is certainly different is Almost Sean Brightman. As we discover below, on one day this show even included an impromptu trip to see some art.

It's a comedy format that is rather hard to explain, because it doesn't really fit in any existing performance genre. If we had to try to describe it, we'd point out it involved We Love Comedy's Sean Brightman playing a version of himself, and pretending not to have a show, when actually he does... and, in amongst all that, he blends in pretty much every type of comedy - from observation to sketch. Oh, and there's puppets and a song too.

We're clearly struggling here, so thought it best to hand over to the man himself to describe his creation. Sean says: "The idea stems from 'Almost Sean Brightman' trying to learn how to get over his fears and become a comedian, after studying 'all the greats' for almost three months (after performing comedy for almost six years), then leaving his whole show on the train on the way up to Edinburgh.

"It features help from his awful technical assistant Jimmy Tech™ (played by the wonderful BBC New Comedy Award finalist Mark Silcox), who was found on the train up to Edinburgh. Unfortunately Jimmy Tech™ is trying to direct the show, rather than concentrating on pressing the sound buttons in the right order.

"The show covers many styles of comedy including observational, 70s Club style, character (and meta-character), sidekicks, puppetry, clowning, political, catchphrases, crowd work, games and not a lot more."

The audience plays a key part in Almost Sean Brightman, but if you don't like being the centre of attention fear not, as Sean handles things in a warm and friendly way and you won't be picked on. But what's it like relying on an audience every day in regards to ensuring the show flows? "One of the dreaded joys of bringing a show to Edinburgh, especially one that relies so much on crowd work, is that you can't predict who, or what, you will be playing to every day. Sometimes you'll get a huge audience of lovely lovely lovely people, all wanting to get on board with your flights of fancy. Sometimes you will even get a small audience of lovely lovely people, all wanting to get on board with your... well, you get the idea. Sometimes you will have some inadvertent and unexpected things happen.

"A few days ago, after performing the show each day to adults, I had a whole host of children come in with their parents. It wasn't designed as a kid's show and in fact there was a fair amount of swearing in the show at the time, including a word in the show's catchphrase: 'It's a ******** shambles', I'll leave to decide which swear word it is. It's shows like this that make you think quickly on your feet and, when it came time for the catchphrase, even I didn't know what would come out of my mouth. Luckily the naughty word was replaced with 'shambles'. Completely accidentally I had stumbled upon a startling discovery: this was 12.3% funnier than with the original potty mouthed word."

Sean adds: "Part of the fun is trying to navigate the audience landscape each day and the audience really do make the show what it is, being every bit a character as I, or Jimmy Tech™."

The closing section of Almost Sean Brightman is particularly notable, as Sean touches upon here: "There is a bit towards the end of the show where we play with the theme of The Referendum and the character is getting the wrong idea and trying to fix this 'broken marriage'. To help, we'll have someone from the audience representing Scotland and - without trying to spoil the end of the show - someone representing England. The other day we had a lovely man from Sri Lanka playing the role of Scotland, with a groovy American chap playing England, so I think it helped them really get a grasp of the issues at hand. Well, at least it was a chance for them to put a wig on and dance around a bit!"

Given the concept isn't your standard Edinburgh offering, what happens when an audience member doesn't come on board though? "The lovely thing about doing a show like this, with lots of audience play, is that it puts you as a performer on a voyage of discovery alongside the audience. But it can be a little unpredictable and, every now and again, you'll have a someone in who doesn't like it, or has somewhere better to be, or they just use your 'free show' as a place to rest their weary legs for a few minutes, before leaving for the show they were supposed to see."

Sean then goes on to talk about the most extreme example of a walk out, but one that ends in a fun way: "We had a teeny audience of what appeared to be five lovely lovely peoples. Not an easy number to deal with when you need at least six to cover off everything in the show: five to play and one to do all the clapping. About seventeen and a half minutes into the show, one of my special guests for this afternoon - a grey-haired gentlemen called Chris - started looking around, hurrumpfed and declared rather loudly, so as to disturb the other four patrons, plus Jimmy Tech™, Jimmy Badger™ and me: "RIGHT, THAT'S IT, I AM GOING". I asked in my 'Almost Sean Brightman' character voice: "What, are you ok? Where, why are you going?". He replied "WELL, I HAD TWO CHOICES FOR THIS AFTERNOON, IT WAS EITHER YOUR SHOW OR THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY AND THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY IS WINNING OUT!" and he got up off of his chair, picked up his leather satchel and umbrella and made for the exit.

"A range of emotions pulsed through me and, for a few seconds, I was quite annoyed... then I realised that out of everything there is to do in Edinburgh during this month of August, I had at made it into this gentleman's top two happenings. I had even come first for a little while. "Well well well", I thought, "two can play at that game". So I got everybody in the audience up and we all had a lovely afternoon out looking at the pictures. I even bought Jimmy Tech™ an ice-cream on the way home. Well, it was a lemon ice, as he's lactose intolerant. And that was the story of Christopher Walkout. Some of this was based on a true story and it now appears in the show each day."

[i]Almost Sean Brightman is at Cowgatehead at 4:45pm until the 25th August. Listing