Review by Steve Bennett

The pace settles and more substantial characters take the focus. The slightly camp hairdresser and the Little Britainesque mouthy travel agent are retired to make room for more structured sketches from the nice-but-dim upper class university student, the bizarre job interview and the Northern lecturer and his ESP presentation.

Mohammed demonstrates a skill with accents, an ease with an audience and a rather impressive knack for magic; but his characters feel familiar and there is little or no freshness in his observations. However, he employs interesting techniques to add a new slant and still manages to extract some big laughs from the crowd.

The ditzy uni student has been done before, Mohammed’s saving grace for this character is that he has placed her in the audience, sitting in the front row and gossiping with her bemused neighbours about eating disorders and parties. She enters into conversation with several members of the audience and Mohammed does a convincing job of staying true to the persona throughout these interactions.

The awkward boss interviewing a potential job candidate again is a tired character but the theatrical devices to show time passing keep the sketch interesting.

The Northern lecturer sketch would be nothing without Mohammed’s skill as a magician. He plucks a volunteer from the audience to help him debunk the ESP phenomenon but using some conjuring tricks ends up discovering the girl he has chosen is a witch. It is an overlong sketch with very little to laugh at save the reactions of the ‘volunteer’.

It is an entertaining hour but needs some careful direction to sort out the problems with pace and timing, and an extra injection of originality into his ideas.

Reviewed by: Corry Shaw

Review date: 1 Jan 2008
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett