Show Rating:

Quality simply shines through Fat Tongue’s scripts. Sophie Black, Seb Cardinal and Dustin Demri-Burns have clearly lavished a lot of attention on every sketch, carefully ensuring that events don’t unfold quite as expected.

They’ll have one off-kilter idea, then hang complementary sub-gags on to it, giving their scenes richness and depth. Thus an already inventive scenario in which panic-stricken lions are racked with post-traumatic guilt at killing a zebra becomes strong character comedy, with one of the pride repeatedly yelling ‘shut up, shut up’ at his feline colleague to an hilarious extent. It’s a joke that has nothing to do with the ridiculous set-up, but funny all the same.

The same consideration is applied to the whole show, with stories skilfully unfolding over several scenes, or tangential links running between far-apart scenes.

The larger-than-life characters work best; the angry ‘doctor-lawyer’ barking with needless aggression like Dom Joly on a mobile phone is a special delight. But there’s also a quiz show host from another galaxy (Who Wants To Be A Mill-alien-aire, presumably), a twisted version of Billy Elliot and a Big Brother sketch that manages to dodge the obvious route many comics would take.

It is all very classy, and often very funny, stuff, and performed with aplomb.

You can see why this talented trio were nominated for the best newcomer accolade at last year’s Fringe. This follow-up proves the honour was no mistake.

Reviewed by: Steve Bennett