A Time Traveller's Guide to Surviving Childhood, Ryan's Cellar Bar | The Stage Edinburgh 2013

Decked out with mortarboards and Harry Potter glasses, Professor Bond and Professor Sharman are holding an unusual summer study camp at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe. They warn at the outset of this children’s show that history is an extremely boring subject, but when their buffoonish assistant announces that he has uploaded a time travel app to his phone, nothing could be further from the truth.

The lecturers use the new app to make contact with a number of special guests, including Blackbeard, Edward VI and an hilarious parody of Sigmund Freud, who bears more of a resemblance to Borat than the founder of psychoanalysis and who offers to interpret the children’s dreams.

Roanna Bond, Lindsay Sharman and Ben Woolrych give wonderfully hammy performances, which keep the adults in stitches as well as the children. Repeated witty references and clever asides sometimes run the risk that the actors are playing to the grown-ups more than the children, but the kids prove themselves to be enthusiastically on board when regularly asked to participate. A number of wee-wee and farting jokes, as well as complimentary sweets, are well deployed to guarantee the full attention of the audience.

The show gets part of its charm from its slightly chaotic nature, with the three performers constantly leaving the stage to reappear as historical figures. However, the inclusion of a fourth cast member might help to make the story a little clearer.