Edinburgh Fringe comedy review by Steve Bennett

Heavily influenced by Vic & Bob, Ross and Josh could be a similar cult-in-waiting, although their first Fringe outing struggles to find the right balance of silly.

Certainly their Big Night Out-style talk show takes a long time to get going. There’s a needless and overlong pre-show video which doesn’t pay off until the show’s end – and even then it’s probably not worth it – before host Ross Brierley offers a menu of forthcoming guests and does a bit of business with the bandleader, who’s a baby. Not a grown man playing a baby, George Dawes/Shooting Stars style, but a moustachioed doll behind a Fisher-Price keyboard, whose personality, voiced from offstage, has a hint of the John Shuttleworth.

None of this really works, which knocks the wind out of the Leeds-based duo’s sails before they’ve even left the harbour. But a two-minute stand-up section in which Joshua Sadler offers an offbeat take on the hot-dog pizza starts to get the vessel moving.

But only when Sadler returns as the show’s first proper and preposterous guest, the T-Rex from Jurassic Park, does the stupidity start to kick in, as the pair begin to abandon themselves to their idiocy. 

They try to conduct a civil conversation, ignoring the fact that one of them a) is dressed a dinosaur and b) struggling with a rapidly deflating costume that’s flopping all over the set. Seeing a performer march on while fighting their own costume is a fair bet for funny, and they have great fun with it here, while delivering scripted silly quips.

Then it’s Brierley’s turn to muck about, given that his host persona has hitherto been played predominantly straight. But as Bruce Foresight, who can predict the manner of your death as well as host a mean gameshow, he’s let off the leash. With a chin fashioned from gaffer tape, he leads the audience patsy through some oddball rounds while keeping the energy high.

And then we’re back to the talk show for an interview with Mario, of Nintendo fame, with more daft gags and a madness that’s now – finally – gathered momentum.

The live segments are interspersed with suitably ridiculous video sketches, such as a garage MC commentating on a horserace, and surreal new takes on Toys R Us adverts. But is it coincidence that the Not So Late NSL logo that intersperses them could be read as SNL? As if you might confuse this Shambles with America’s slick Saturday Night Live.

Ross and Josh could become their own comedy ‘brand’ if they can build an audience organically, and foster some in-jokes and maybe catchphrases that can bond those who share their daft sense of humour into a gang.

Part of the issue why the Edinburgh show struggles to ‘take’ is that they’ve spent a lot of money to be in the wrong room. Jack Dome is a neat little black-box studio space, perfect for slightly theatrical sketch shows. But they'd be better off in a slightly shabby free venue with an underground vibe, where they'd feel like a secret you'd stumbled across rather than the presentation of a professional venue.  ‘Professional’ should not be their aim, because they are so good at the shambolic.

Review date: 6 Aug 2017
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett