Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Just These Please are the sort of middle-class song and dance comedy troupe who’ve surely been coming to the Fringe since it began in 1947. It’s a format that comes with a lot of baggage and, frankly, low expectations.

But through their energy, their joy, their finely-honed writing and their attention to detail, they transcend all of this. They are drum-tight performers - not a fleck of post-lockdown rust here – with their rare discipline underpinned with a commitment to ebullient entertainment that will cheer the most cynical of hearts.

They compensate for the lack of spontaneity with material written just for this run, from an opening number about the venue’s Covid etiquette to a song about the architecture of the room. It’s not the most auspicious of starts when they use the ancient song-parody technique of ending one line of a song with the word ‘banker’ and its rhyming couplet with ‘we think Boris Johnson is a… politician’. But this is a rare slip for a troupe that tends to think more tangentially.

Sketches might start as a careers advice interview or Ofsted inspection but take a sharp turn to the offbeat. A scene in which a busy boss sends his PA to deputise for him in a social situation is wonderfully creative, even if the ending falls short.

The quartet of Georgie Jones, William Sebag-Montefiore, Philippa Carson and Tom Dickson lean into their middle-classness with an excellent song about being over-polite which gives the show its title, No Worries If Not. It's apt good manners for performers who give an actorly nod to each other after each scene. Another memorable skit mocks twee small-talk by applying it to less genteel topics, while banana bread and bags for life inspire other skits. Yet sometimes they go off the wall more than their manners would suggest: Carson does pretend to be a vagina at one point.

The morning after the Last Supper is perhaps a more obvious premise, but the gags are packed tight and, as always, the performance is faultless. 

Their slick pizazz sells the fast-paced gags so well, combined with an unpredictability in the writing that keeps the audience on their toes. Everything is precision-engineered to ensure the crowd has a good time – and damn effective it is too.

• Just These Please: No Worries If Not is on at Gilded Balloon Teviot at 5pm until August 21.

Review date: 19 Aug 2021
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Gilded Balloon Teviot