Arthur Smith Sings Leonard Cohen – reviews of comic show

What you need to know

The 2013 Edinburgh Festival Fringe comedy hit, Arthur Smith Sings Leonard Cohen, has opened at the Soho Theatre, London. Comedian, broadcaster and playwright Smith is known for his plays An Evening with Gary Lineker and The Live Bed Show, and as a regular presenter on BBC Radio 4.

His musical comedy show, Arthur Smith Sings Leonard Cohen, has been recorded for BBC Radio 4, and features Smith's reflections on death, dementia and his relationship to Cohen along with renditions of Cohen's songs performed by Smith and backing musicians. Runs until 2 March.

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What the critics like

When lugubrious comedy legend Arthur Smith pays homage to the lugubrious singer, "the result is inevitably lugubrious but also touching, uplifting and very funny", says Bruce Dessau in the Evening Standard. Smith focuses on mortality and knits together Cohen's zen-like worldview with his own thoughts - this is comedy with everything but the kitchen sink.

"Though he's singing the words of a greater artist, Smith strips himself bare over the hour as he passes a selection of favourites through his gravelly drawl," says Dominic Cavendish in the Daily Telegraph. He avoids earnestness and we never stray too far from the winding path of ramshackle eccentricity or the slopes of professionalism, thanks to able, attractive support from his backing musicians.

Smith, who is Cohen's unlikely doppelganger and a lifelong fan, has built "a reflective, funny, wise hour", that is part tribute show, but also veers off in directions, says Libby Purves on Theatre Cat. It's a uniquely consoling voice, expressing the wreckage we must all cling to.

What they don't like

It's "an occasionally sombre hour" as the 60-year-old muses on depression, decline, dementia and death, says Steve Bennett on Chortle. But if this genre-defying show is not out-and-out hilarious, it's sophisticated and satisfying in its languid, gently amusing, way.