Review: Great Yorkshire Fringe, Omid Djalili, Schmuck For A Night, White Rose Rotunda, Parliament Street, York, July 19

THE village green carpet has been rolled out, the tents erected, the food stalls and drinks dispensaries are open for business, the showtime billboards are up and queues are forming at Bob the Box Office bus. Welcome to the fourth Great Yorkshire Fringe festival of comedy, music, cabaret, burlesque, children's shows and Ouse cruises, run by comedy impresario Martin Witts.

Iranian-London comic Omid Djalili was delighted to have the honour of opening 11 days of more than 100 shows, and while he said he felt a little ring rusty as he resumed his Schmuck For A Night travels, he has more than 100 performances of this state-of-the-world show behind him-.

Djalili says he does not want to dwell too much on Trump or Brexit, but says so with a twinkle in his eye because the best material of the night addresses both those prickly issues, inevitably big discussion points after the events of the past week.

In his interview with The Press, he suggested comedians had become the philosophers of our society, and certainly that applies to him. What he can do is go beyond the boundaries of politicians in his opinions, and he is smart, smart, smart. All parties receive a blast; he even finds reason for why disaffected voted to leave Europe.

He is a master mimic too, improvising a South African set-to between President Nelson Mandela and his neighbour Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and as promised, he builds a closing routine around florid Egyptian football commentators. And I love the way he dances when he celebrates a joke hitting home. Omid is no schmuck; he is the wise fool instead.

Charles Hutchinson