Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

With a running commentary on how the show is going and the tragic desperation of still performing sketch comedy in their 30s, Tarot tread a fine line between hilariously freewheeling energy and derailing self-indulgence.

Thankfully, Ed Easton, Kath Hughes and Adam Drake are funny enough and self-aware enough to – mostly – keep on the side of the comedy angels, but sometimes it’s a close call. 

Not that ‘angels’ is a good reference point for a trio who take their aesthetic from the occult. Dressed in the nightdresses of Victorian ghosts, they enter to The Exorcist’s ominous theme tune before Drake inscribes three pentagons onto their backdrop – though it’s not what it first appears.

They are dark masters of the unexpected pullback, deftly employing the technique in several sketches – including an hilarious one set in the human equivalent of cat petting cafés, their unsetting version of Fleabag’s ‘hot priest’, and a brilliantly awkward audition for a Birds Eye advert.  

Meanwhile, pullback’s ever-present sibling ‘reveal’ is here, thanks to the indecorous costumes the boys wear. ‘If this sketch goes well, no one is going to see my balls,’ Easton says, reassuring nobody. Such moments – of which there are plenty – give a sense of raucous danger to the more sharply scripted elements of Cautionary Tales.

The hour, directed by Ben Rowse and Kiri Pritchard-McLean, relies on the trio’s unwavering commitment to their weird and outrageous ideas, and all three are up to the challenge while displaying an easy chemistry, both between themselves and with the audience they conspire with.

Their banter is awash with knowing gags about their place in the industry, performing a genre that almost never gets on to TV. Their catchphrase, ‘sketch will never die’, sounds more like a desperate, deluded hope than defiant rallying cry. However they are doing their darnedest to keep the spirit alive. No wonder they are inspired by the occult.

Review date: 23 Aug 2022
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard