“Clever Sketch Comedy Pulled Together by a Team of Great Performers”
The Durham Review returns to the fringe with a new show, seemingly aiming to move from sketch into a long-form type of show about Indiana Jones. The only issue is, Indy hasn’t made it yet. This leaves the team of performers to fill the time with what they know best, some good old sketch comedy.
The show includes a variety of sketches including a gory seance, some fun pronunciations of words, an overzealous confessional and some tired teachers admonishing children while trying to put on a school production of Waiting for Godot. The writing of these sketches, and the many more that feature, is very good. They are clever and often interrogate mundane happenings in humorous ways. They vary from surrealist to melodramatic to musical, and vary form and length throughout, which keeps the show fresh.
The performance team consists of Samuel Bentley, Jude Battersby, Miranda Pharoah, Nat Pryke, Ollie Painter and Alice Barr. They all have a hand in the writing along with the writers Isaac Slater and Bea Pescott-Khan. Each performer gets the chance to shine throughout the show, and all have a slick comedic timing. They come together brilliantly, and have clearly built trust and strong bonds to allow the comedy to soar.
In the midpoint of the show, we are treated to something completely different. A sketch starring an audience member as Indiana Jones’ replacement. This was a lot of fun and a very clever way to split up the sketches. This turned out to be another clever way to keep the show interesting, and changing it up rather than sticking to a more standard approach to sketch comedy. And that is what makes the Durham Review so much fun to watch, which is what you need from this type of comedy.
The show is, as is often the way with sketch comedy, not without its misses, but these are outweighed heavily by the hits. It’s a good hour of sketch comedy with plenty of fast fun and frivolity throughout.
The Durham Review: Raiders of the Lost Laughs runs 6th – 30th August (Not 18th) at 14.30. Tickets are available here.