If it seems a tad rich for a mime to be sending up magicians for the hoariest cliches of their routines, Trygve Wakenshaw’s return to the Fringe after seven years is affectionate rather than snide towards his fellow speciality acts. His mostly speech-free ballet of buffoonery is a typically joyous exploration of the human condition. Indeed, at one point, the pipe cleaner-limbed Kiwi presents an entire life, from courtship to conception, birth and vitality, right through to death. It’s amusing but undeniably affecting and with a satisfying circularity to rival Finnegans Wake.

Elsewhere, Wakenshaw is more irreverent, the bodies piling higher and higher during his card tricks, sword swallowing and other sketches. But the act is so strongly executed that a volunteer can later recreate aspects of it almost beat-for-beat, a triumphant note that virtually concludes the show. With limited, judicious use of muttered dialogue and music, the pace of the skits is varied, with an early highlight a cartoonish embodiment of loneliness, while magic is woven throughout and escalates in showiness.

Without so much of the surprise element of his breakthrough years, it’s nevertheless a pleasure to simply admire Wakenshaw’s physical control and invention, allied to his goofy desire to just entertain. In these troubled times, no one is desperately calling for mime’s resumption of a place at art’s top table as far as anyone is aware. But it’s good to know it’s still flourishing somewhere. 

Trygve Wakenshaw: Silly Little Things, Assembly Roxy, until 25 August, 8.15pm; main picture: Michal Hančovský.