Review from the Vault Festival, London

When we first see Roisin and Chiara, each are adopting a  grotesque parody of the supposed beauty ideal built on Botox, fillers and implants. It instantly establishes them as performers ready to incinerate any dignity or decorum in the name of a laugh, as well as establishing the loose themes of image, femininity and ageing that underpin the show.

Most cosmetic procedures are already ridiculous enough, which appeals to the duo’s keen sense of absurdity and allows them to exaggerate reality to comically ugly extremes, satirically but stupidly.  They throw themselves with abandon into unhinged scenarios, whether it’s getting messy with toothpaste or twerking to the pumping soundtrack that so often backs their sketches.

Theirs is a dynamic performance that’s hard to resist, and they are always keen to clamber into the audience to make things even more up-close and personal.

Yet for their considerable energy, Sex On Wheels struggles to build momentum in its earlier sections. Possibly this is because of the pair’s awkwardly bold sexual advances, disconcertingly  emphasising the weirdness of infantilised, baby-voiced flirtation – the ultimate fetishisation of youth.  Speaking of which, they have a very timely take on how Madonna no longer looks her age.

While there’s some sticking points in bringing tonight’s crod on board, an appealing sense of freewheeling fun underpins all they do – a laxness which conceals quite how good they are at cartoonish characters, broad physical comedy and twisted accents.

Revealing more of their true selves – both metaphorically and physically in shedding all the padding – as the hour goes on allows more warmth to build beneath the big-and-brash skits.

Having worked together for more than a decade, they have a remarkable chemistry, as well as an effortless charisma and engaging looseness that welcomes the audience into their world. A crowd, incidentally, that were unusually keen to contribute tonight.

The underlying messages of the show also comes to the fore, about the miracles a female body can achieve. Not that Mses O'Mahony and Goldsmith ever take this in the slightest bit seriously, rolling words like ‘fecundity’ around to sound as stupid as possible – four words that could well be their motto.

Review date: 9 Feb 2023
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett