Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Remember workplaces? Well, sketch duo Mother will not have anyone still working from home clamouring to get back to the office with this collection of appalling characters.

No one would surely want to spend a minute longer than necessary in their awful company… which is something of a drawback when you’re asking audiences to watch for an hour.

The titular Colleagues are almost universally loud and obnoxious with few redeeming features, which makes the show grating to endure. Laura Curnick and Jack Mosedale perform at an ear-splitting volume too, so it’s little surprise that in the second half of the show, every blackout sends a new batch of audience members scuttling to the door. 

The fact that that the characters keep reappearing, despite popular demand, doesn’t help, making the audience feel they’re trapped in an endless loop of unpleasantness.

We start with the shrill Brummies Don and Zelda setting up a caravan park on the Spanish costas, making it just like home. No local food or serenading guitars, just British grub and the sounds of an amusement arcade. It’s a thin joke, driven into the ground.

Two make-up counter staff just snipe angrily at each other, while human resources managers, first introduced in the duo’s 2019 show, go into the audience with aggression. In one of their several reappearances, they ask punters to share their workplace confessions, and it all goes a bit local radio phone-in.

A silent one-off sketch about florists does have a strong punchline – as well offering blessed respite from all the shouting. And sibling musicians with a creepily inappropriate relationship, offer more potential, as well as plenty of innuendo. Is it a coincidence that these are also among the more low-key scenes? But even their closing number, while technically adroit, fails to get the audience going. 

I mean that in an emotional way… by this point much of them had literally already gone.

• Mother: Colleagues is at Underbelly George Square at 5pm today.

Review date: 22 Aug 2021
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Underbelly George Square