Lorna Irvine reviews two up-and-coming comedy acts.
In the eighties and nineties, you couldn't move for brilliant, irreverent and often politically-charged sketch shows: Alexei Sayle's Stuff; French and Saunders, Absolutely, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Friday Night Live, The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer,etc. But recently, there has been a decline, with only a few cutting through the BBC 3 mediocrity. Edinburgh has always been a launch pad for new comedy, so it's interesting to contrast two new sketch shows.
First up, Roll It in Sequins (***) by Heffernan and Fletcher- two women who don't like Mondays- or you suspect, any other day of the week. Why the daily grind, they argue, when they'd rather bump and grind? “Madam, have you slipped on your own boredom?” they ask an audience member, rather wonderfully.
Underneath their office clothes are showgirl sparkly swimsuits (which, thanks to a wardrobe malfunction, we see too early on in their routine) and they share a fantastic absurdist physicality, whether portraying virginal office workers trying to write erotic novels, or gamine Amelie-esque French simpletons.
The 'naked CEO' and his Playboy Bunny are brilliantly realised, and there's a natural chemistry, best displayed in their parade of grotesques. It may be going a bit wrong for them today, but on a good day and given time, this double-act could be pretty special.
There is a lot of Tiggerish energy and a brilliant slick choreography to Four Screws Loose: Screwtopia (***), and there should be given they are Fringe favourites. This show, directed by the fabulous Matthew Floyd-Jones (Mannish of Frisky and Mannish fame) is an exercise in high camp, barely controlled chaos. The quartet bounce around, swap wigs and molest audience members.
Some well-worn, deliberately Daily Mail- baiting territory means it doesn't always work, as in the gay robot sketch, but when it does, as with their Les Supermarches Miserables opera riffing on class divisions, Strictly Come Dancing parody, or in the best skit, the choir who can't respond without a baton conducting their every movement, becoming utterly ridiculous. It's inspired stuff.
The pissed-up, lairy atmosphere in the tent, with squealing teenage girls who heckle every ten minutes, is strange though. One fell on me! I'm not ready to go yet- not in an Assembly Rooms tent- it isn't sketch comedy to die for…
Both runs have since completed.
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