Review by Julia Chamberlain

Fast paced, slick, and brimming with energy – have you ever seen a sketch group that wasn’t completely hyperactive? – these gentlemen have taken sketch and combined it with narrative to make a tiny superhero/cop show/comicbook epic.

The opening credits, beautifully played with each actor running on carrying title cards which, with a voiceover and soundtrack, set the tone. It really does have the feeling of a movie event.  

This is pretty close to unseasonal panto and when one Beta Male actually did mention ‘thinly sketched caricature’ I couldn’t help but think we didn’t need reminding.  But never mind, it’s not meant to be Shakespeare and the relish with which they embodied superheroes, sleuths, gangsters, goodtime girls  and arch-criminals was a joy to behold, like Benny Hill doing Sin City.  

However this is the standard below which sketch comedy should not dip. An ensemble piece should be this slick, swift and without weak links. Otherwise it shouldn’t see the light of day.

The comic book references and superheroes were not particularly my cup of tea, but  they were obviously delighting the rest of the crowd.  There were some stand-out performances – the very solid John Henry Falle playing Superhero Strongth, among a multitude of other roles, managed to strike a note of tenderness and pathos in a show of frantic mugging; while Adam Blampied  managed to still the whirlwind of stage activity with an over the top villain from the Gary Oldman/ Christopher Walken school of near over-acting,  introducing  a sinister frisson into events.

The cast had obviously had a lot of fun devising the piece, with slow and fast-motion sequences, audio sketches in the blackouts to cover scene changes, there was not an unfilled moment.

They used caricature and stereotype to tell a complete story, rather well, it made me think they’ll all be named actors in the not too distant future.

Review date: 9 Aug 2013
Reviewed by: Julia Chamberlain