Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

When the Britney double act of Charly Clive and Ellen Robertson were first at the Fringe six years ago, they won plaudits for the way that – barely into their 20s – they skilfully wove Clive’s brain tumour diagnosis into their sketch comedy. The story was subsequently adapted into a delightful and touching BBC Three pilot.

The question now is whether they can still deliver the goods without a story lending poignancy and gravitas to their silliness. And the answer is a resounding ‘yes’.

Clive and Robertson have been best friends since meeting in Year 9, spending the last 15 years fostering the kind of chemistry that can’t be faked. But they give it a good go, as their relationship with the audience they just met is as playful and mischievous as it is with each other.

The pair make a literal song and dance about their first joke, an awful pun, celebrating the audacity of putting forward something so dodgy. Likewise, it will come as no surprise that their first ‘dizzyingly intellectual’ foray into political humour falls short of its stated aim.

They are desperately uncool comedy nerds but style it out, safe in the knowledge they have each other. That bond was evident when they hosted the 2009 school talent show and ‘absolutely tanked it’ by forgetting their lines – a screw-up which haunts them to this day.

Their sketch work has definitely come on. Their depiction of Facebook as a Wild West ghost town is wittily on-point, we get to look at what goes on in Stephen King’s home life, and the scene in which a desperate wife has bound her husband to a chair has an brilliantly blindsiding payoff. 

It’s the effortless, intimate banter between sketches that shines brightest, though, full of wonderful little touches and asides, such as the pronunciation of the word ‘segue’ which feels like it was an in-joke that’s spilled out into the public. 

They seem naive, but their work is knowing, with the running joke that they’ve only got into comedy to attract spouses, which sounds like they’re leaning into an insult from a troll. (Incidentally, Robertson got into a ‘cancel culture’ spat with author James Dellingpole after she tweeted praise for a history book about Nazis, but that’s a story for a different day).

Clive and Robertson’s relationship is absolutely and infectiously joyous, underpinned by an emotional shorthand and the clear understanding they are friends and ‘nothing more’. They even have a jingle to underline there’s nothing sexual there. And in the climax, their bond is displayed in a tender moment of unity, only, of course, to be cut down by a gag moments later.

It’s a privilege and a delight to be allowed into their super-tight friendship group for one brief hour. And, generously, they not only make you feel like a full part of the gang – they’ve got lots of top-drawer jokes to share with you too.

• Britney is at Pleasance Courtyard at 5.45pm

Review date: 11 Aug 2022
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard