Incompetent mountaineers sit alongside amateur online daters and the song and dance of building societies in Mischief, the sketch show by talented comic troupe the Boom Jennies, whose boundless enthusiasm blended with sharp, clever writing to give last night’s eager audience all the laughs they could have asked for.
The Boom Jennies are Lizzie Bates, Catriona Knox and Anna Evans, three talented comic performers with seemingly limitless supplies of pep and energy. With a series of classically silly sketches they kept the enthusiasm high and the audience giggling. The troupe benefited from a rowdy late-night audience; when Knox asked everyone packed into the Pleasance Jack’s Dome if they were ready to ‘get involved’, the reply was a resounding ‘Yes!’ buried somewhere amidst a storm of cheering. From the get-go there was an atmosphere of high energy and fun and both the Jennies and the audience responded to it very favourably.
The sketches themselves are mostly first-rate. The Jennies’ approach is to include fewer, longer sketches, rather than the rapid series of one-joke bits favoured by many other troupes. The material feels very polished and generally relies on smart dialogue and well-placed gags rather than zany ideas or high concepts. For instance, an early sketch involves a group of bored mums on the school run, a simple concept that really works because of the way the humour is derived from the characters rather than just a presentation of a wacky idea. A fair warning now: don’t sit in the front row if you aren’t prepared to deal with the consequences. There are plenty of fourth-wall breaking interactive moments, involving a wild hen night, Lizzie’s liberal attitudes towards married men and Anna’s hopes that her father will come to watch the show. The conclusion to the latter thread was telegraphed a little too heavily, meaning that most of the audience probably saw it coming, but it still had everyone cackling and provided a storming end to a fabulous hour.
There were a few misses here and there; an extravagant costume gag involving a wardrobe miscommunication at a formal event ended up being a bit too much buildup for a relatively meagre payoff, as did a series of skits involving a relay race. Thankfully the weaker material was generally in the quicker bits, so there were no prolonged lulls in the laughter and the energy was never allowed to flag. The Boom Jennies are some seriously funny performers who will leave you pumped up and achey-faced from laughing and their show is an infectiously energetic late-night treat.
