Cadel: Lungs on Legs ★★★★★ | 1 Lung Marathon ★★★

Connor Delves is no stranger to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Last summer he got to show off his vocal chops in Bloody Ballad of Bette Davis, improbably playing (and slaying), of all people, film star Karen Black. Now Delves has returned to Scotland and is once again portraying a real person, albeit one who requires less a leap of the imagination from the audience but demands loads more physically as a performer: Cadel Evans, the first and only Australian to win the Tour de France.

In Cadel: Lungs on Legs, Delves simultaneously spins his wheels and a great story. Starting with the penultimate stage of the 2011 Tour de France where Cadel has to make up 57 seconds in order to be wearing the desired yellow jersey before biking the final, ceremonial stage into Paris, this gripping non-linear show goes back and forth in time depicting Cadel’s trials and tribulations up to that moment. As in all the best sports stories, and Cadel’s story is a great one, you can’t help but root for this athlete and be moved by his ultimate victory, even when the ending is never in doubt.

Despite the inherent lack of suspense, Cadel: Lungs on Legs succeeds thanks to clever staging, a well-crafted script and the dedicated, sweaty actor cycling through it. Screens on either side of Delves give crucial information as needed, along with occasional bursts of historical television footage. And though watching a performer spin on a bike sounds like it could be painfully monotonous, this show is anything but. Delves jumps on and off the cycle, theatrically depicting racing sprints, bike malfunctions and various injuries (a torn ACL, getting kicked in the head by a horse) all while delivering almost non-stop dialogue in various accents. (Delves, an Australian now living in New York City, has truly mastered the transitions between his Australian and American characters.) At the show’s end when Cadel raises his bike in celebration, the audience can’t help but break into raucous applause. Not solely for the win by the legendary cyclist, but equally for the triumphant performance by the talented actor portraying him.

Terance Hartnett is also a returnee to the Fringe. He does not cycle in his new show 1 Lung Marathon, nor, despite the title, does he run. Instead, shirtless so he can show the audience the long horizontal scar that crosses his chest, he details how and why he ran the Vienna Marathon after losing a lung to cancer.

In prior Fringe outings Hartnett performed 1 Ball Show, which recounted how he lost one of his testicles after being diagnosed with testicular cancer, and that was followed by 1 Lung Run, which covered him doing the Fringe show about his departed testicle before getting cancer again and losing one of his lungs. 1 Lung Marathon is thus the third in a series, and one hopes Hartnett isn’t tempting fate to take yet another of his body parts.

Fortunately that’s highly unlikely, as Hartnett is now officially cancer-free. That’s the great — and most important — news. Now for the bad. This show can be better.

With his self-described “boat hair” and “weatherman-shaped head,” the one-balled, one- lunged Hartnett has a charming presence and an easy, self-effacing air. He knows how to hold an audience’s attention, and after his health travails, audiences are on his side from the word go, ready to let the laughs rip.

Alas, hearty guffaws aren’t in abundance; the material isn’t yet strong enough. The hour is instead met with chuckles and titters, as Hartnett delivers his observations on Fahrenheit versus Celsius (“Fahrenheit is based on vibes.”) and what his life is like now that’s he moved to Austria (“I don’t speak German but my laundry machine does.”)

Hartnett gets his biggest (and deserved) laughs at the very end of the show when he recounts the time an Austrian nurse gave him an X-ray, right before he reveals a surprising, mischievous ending that no one sees coming. And with that, Hartnett nails the landing. If he can ramp up the preceding material to that high level, he’ll be unstoppable, even with just one lung and one testicle.