★★★★★

The term ‘melt’, according to Urban Dictionary, refers to “a person who has no balls, needs to man up, gives in to anything”. It’s also apparently a Belfast term meaning “to bore someone half to death”. Well, we’re not in Belfast – and seeing Tom Lucy’s show Melt, the last thing you feel is bored.

Of course, Tom does play on the first definition of the word. An effeminate 25-year-old man who now finds himself more attracted to furniture, the show’s narrative arc centres around whether or not Tom is going to ask his girlfriend to move in with him – and there’s a little bit about a recent circumcision (emphasis on little in that department, he tells us).

Sounding like a wispy Michael McIntyre – only with less hair-shaking and more linguistic wit – Tom has an evidently innate sense for reading a room. Even if that room, for the show I went to at least, was met with a number of strange shout-outs and late entries – items which are inevitably ripped into by comics like Tom. Perhaps this is inevitable given the show’s 9:45pm start-time, when people are easily a pint or five in.

Speaking of intoxicants, Tom has one of the best anecdotes I’ve heard at The Fringe. Not just about tanks (although that too), but about flushing four grams of cocaine that belonged to a very famous actor down the toilet – which for legal reasons I can’t mention, and for those same reasons Tom is forced to deny.

Perhaps because we’ve been forced online in the past few years, many shows at this year’s Fringe used a lot of digital media: screens, laptops, projectors. Tom Lucy did none of that. This is a straight-up, one-comic-one-mic stand-up show and an absolute barrel of laughs.

If you are indeed a melt who gives in to anything, make sure you go and see Tom Lucy.

(And for those wondering about the tank material, Tom’s dad is an ex-military tank driver. And that is as much as I’m giving away).

Tom Lucy’s ‘Melt’ is on at Pleasance Courtyard (Upstairs) at 21:45 everyday at The Fringe.