It’s bordering on trite to make the ‘performance is like marmite’ analogy, but there is no better way to describe the slick, surreal and wonderfully unique sketch show that is BEASTS. Comic trio Owen Roberts, James McNicholas and Ciaran Dowd have cooked up something deliciously divisive. If you like the bizarre brand of comedy, one brimming with elongated pauses and grotesque facial expressions, it cannot be missed.
Hilarity is not so much derived from what is said; the sketch conceits are clever and reasonably fresh, but it’s the undeniably the delivery that makes it. All have impeccable timing, effortlessly milking every beat for all its worth. It’s a testament to their comic precision that something as simplistic as repeated utterances of the word ‘biscuits’ brought the house down. Indeed, one skit consists of nothing more than James McNicholas reading ‘Spot the Dog’ aloud. Such is the level of physical sophistication on display here that each turn of a page is a catalyst for laughter.
The show reaches its zenith, however, with a delectably dark piece in which an oddball children’s author, played to perfection by McNicholas, attempts to sell his Billy the Elephant stories to publishers. To say more would spoil the effect, but you’ll sit there in fierce anticipation of every line, and every gesture. It’s perhaps disingenuous to call McNicholas the strongest of the three (all are staggeringly brilliant) but he takes the erratic weirdness to the next level whilst somehow remaining unnervingly naturalistic.
Possibly the strongest indication of the sheer talent at work here is the final montage, in which every character from the past hour is involved. Not only does this coda provide massive laughs, it’s tinged with an unexpected poignancy; that the trio manage to elicit empathy from their bizarre comic creations is simply astonishing. It may not be to everyone’s taste, but for those who crave all things crazy BEASTS is worth every second.
