Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

The Manchester Revue have all the youthful zing you would hope for - or dread, depending on your own energy levels. The sextet burst onto the stage in an explosion of enthusiasm, boom out their lines in a theatrical way and come out every few sketches to check we’re all having fun! Yay!

It’s very much a traditional studenty performance with all the tropes: matching T-shirts, random regional accents, even an ‘oops there go my trousers’ recurring sketch. And the hardest stereotype of any sketch outfit to shake… being ‘a bit hit and miss’.

They even use a tried technique for owning their shortcomings, by explicitly commenting on the formulaic way each scene is a simple dialogue between just two people – and how they tend to be overwritten. As always, acknowledging your flaws doesn’t make them go away.

Most sketches also tend to revolve around just the one punchline which the team have trouble expanding on, so they tend to either repeat variants on it or let the gag peter out. But on the positive side, that means there are clear robust jokes throughout – and even with overwriting the scenes are mostly brief, turning over at a cracking pace.

Hits include an atypically dark sketch about a wardrobe time machine, some pantomime sexism (cue deserved boos and hisses from the audience) and a twist on Willy Wonka. Crap Theatre In Education presentations telling kids not to do drugs are a sketch show standard but done here with such stupidly overwrought drama it works well.

Misses include the aforementioned propensity to shed their kecks and a Question Time spoof that fails to grasp the show’s clichés, and inevitably pales into comparison with Paul Whitehouse and Harry Enfield’s definitive version. While other good ideas need finessing, such as the invention of the goosestep or the ‘sketches we had to lose’. Further evidence that the writers stop short after having one good idea. 

But the troupe are easy to like in all their uncynical, fresh-faced vigour and their silly punchlines come at a fast enough clip you’ll never be glancing at your watch. The free shot you’ll be getting is seratonin.

• Free Shot On Entry is on at TheSpace Triplex at 8.55pm tonight.

Review date: 14 Aug 2021
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: TheSpaceTriplex