Show Rating:

Review

Some may consider them a pair of old duffers, themselves included, but Barry Cryer and Ronnie Golden - old or not - have still got it.

Cryer has written for the best of them, including Morecambe and Wise and Tommy Cooper. Golden, Cryer's musical foil, worked with the Comic Strip and at the Comedy Store in its early days. Their pairing has proved to work time and time again, as this is their fifth year at the festival.

This year they promise to take a musical trip through the last century and beginning with a whimsical slide show where they 'are Photoshopped into iconic images taken though out the century, appearing with celebrities from Laurel and Hardy to the Sex Pistols. But as the show begins, carefree Cryer points out that the title is only a vague idea, and we shouldn't pay too much attention to that.

The show is more of a comic exploration of music and anything else they've decided to write about. There's a eulogy to England and a ditty about John Prescott. Several genres are lampooned - the more familiar comedic territory of Michael Flatley's Riverdance or 'Liverdance' as Cryer prefers to refer to it and Muddy Waters' oft parodied blues classic Woke Up This Morning. Then bringing it bang up to date they include the highlight of the evening, an ode to Bono the new saviour.

Cryer's timeless comic writing is clearly on display, he delights in playing on words ­ all proceeds from the show are going to a home for battered Mars bars, apparently. He frequently lapses into a groanworthy pun with obvious glee. Golden's technically brilliant musical ability complements Cryer perfectly, supplying the show with, among other things, a yodelling Nazi.

All in all it's an enjoyable and fast moving hour.

Marissa Burgess