Review by Steve Bennett

If you wanted to parody a bad, studenty Fringe show, you might imagine one person dressed up as giant foam cock, prodding another dressed as a giant vagina. Well, imagine no more; the Two Wrongies are in town.

This is the, erm, climax of a relentlessly genital-obsessed double act, whose brazen approach goes for the graphic over the witty every time. Another very extended routine has these two girls simply miming out sex from the male perspective, from cursory foreplay to inevitable conclusion, which may be accurate but has barely a twist for comedy effect.

Their subtitle could be How Not To Look Naked, for they are afraid neither of a bit of full-frontal, nor to make themselves look ridiculous in the quest for a laugh. While the lack of self-consciousness might be laudable, the effect ultimately comes across as desperation. If all else fails, fanny out!

This is most comprehensively demonstrated in their synchronised swimming parody, which is simply a display of bad dancing – to almost the full length of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody – the only gimmick being their nudity. It’s all rather po-faced, too – physical comedy’s equivalent of deadpan, but on the wrong side of the fine line between underplaying comedy and appearing bored with it.

Thing is, the pair – Avis Cockbill and Janine Fletcher – are not bad clowns. Their movements are precise and they can raise a smile just from striking a pose, but that skill is not used to good effect, and even when it is, ideas long outstay their welcome. Brevity is not the soul of their wit.

They think the ‘lunge’ stance is so inherently funny, that in a near-blatant Monty Python rip-off they do this repeatedly on stage, and then on the sort of overlong YouTube video fans of the planking craze might go; while another too-long scene has them move slowly between odd poses to a background of trippy chords, which turns out more dreary than dreamy.

A couple of scenes stand out as being different: their ‘two girls, one dress’ routine is arty with a smidgeon of illusion (not funny, but enjoyable); while their jaunty goodtime-jazz intro, complete with exaggerated Groucho-style walk, suggests an upbeat hour that sadly isn’t forthcoming.

In skilled hands, puerile knob gags can work a treat, but Two Wrongies don’t make it right.

Review date: 5 Aug 2011
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett