Incredibly promising newcomers Harry Carr and Luke Davies delighted and occasionally repelled the audience with an hour of ingenious, highly bizarre and superbly executed sketches.
Their subject matter is the sphere of domestic life and family relationships, a well-trodden path in comedy but one they approach with dynamism and originality. Much hilarity was found in the awkwardness between mother and son or father and son whenever the subject of sex, pubic hair or menopause was broached. There is a certain macabre or even sinister element in many of the sketches; jokes on incest, cancer and self-abuse abound. There was certainly a fascination with the grotesque paired with a dash of surrealism, best demonstrated in the sketch when ‘granddad vacated himself in the bath’. Yet even these were delivered in such a cerebral way that the show was unrelentingly hilarious. Ultimately what was being mocked was delicate audience sensibilities.
There were other recurring formulae to the sketches: identify certain social attitudes, then rigorously subvert them; establish audience expectations, then thoroughly shatter them. This was done from the very beginning, when the duo bounced on stage like Dick and Dom to the sort of music you might hear on children’s TV, before producing skits of most definitely adult humour. The comedy continuously veered towards absurdity, positioning the sketches’ surreal elements in the most prosaic of scenarios.
This was a highly bizarre and immensely enjoyable show and these two performers are definitely ones to watch out for.
