Review by Steve Bennett

The three boys have been peddling variations of this act at the Fringe for four years now, and I've never been convinced it works.

It is 'live cinema' sketches from what they call Hollywoodn't. The trouble is it looks too much like an audition for a radio or TV series that has not been adapted for the stage.

There are lots of carefully pre-recorded sound tape inserts - both voiceovers and music - so that, often, what is happening on stage is playing second fiddle to what is happening on the loudspeakers. When this happens, the show is, at best, televised radio rather than stage performance.

Occasionally, the audience is watching a darkened, empty stage while listening to disembodied words. This is producing something for the wrong medium.

There are some occasionally good basic ideas - an overlong Star Wars sketch (done by them before), or a Hollywood High School peopled with younger versions of current box-office stars - but too often the sketches lack a killer punchline.

Best is their Jerry Bruckheimer's Armageddon: The Musical, but this is effective mostly because they do it with pastiches of the stonkingly good songs from West Side Story.

It is difficult to know where The Pineapple Boys can go from here. Perhaps next year dump the movie sketches and, performance licensing fees allowing, do a musical?

Review date: 1 Aug 2004
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett