Meet Benjamin and James. Benjamin plays the keyboard. James plays the guitar and occasionally raps. But not only are they a musical twosome, they also happen to be identical twins. This is this Australian comedic double act’s debut at the Edinburgh Fringe and they are excited to share the full
Enthusiastic entertainers with talents in singing, guitar, keyboard and stand up.
This show mocks current trends including social media, veganism, hipsters and fitbits. Benjamin and James or Bee J and Jimmy as they refer to themselves in the show, perform a number of charming narrative songs; my favourites include ‘Thanks 2016’, ‘A Friend They Don’t Like’ and ‘Steps to Sex’. They use toothpaste as an analogy to determine how rich someone is, describe vegans as people with opinions who don’t eat very much and confess to heating up cups of tea in the microwave.
Being twins they are constantly in competition with one another and a lot of the humour in this show comes from rival teasing. Their ‘Time We Swapped’song delivers amusing anecdotes of James attending a wedding with Benjamin’s girlfriend in place of him and the time one sat the other’s driving test for them.
I felt at times that they over used their rivalry as a form of entertainment and they were slightly over concerned with the audience’s approval of them which took away from the show. That being said, this pair are enthusiastic entertainers with talents in singing, guitar, keyboard and stand up. They are also gracious performers and humbly thank their audience for attending their show by greeting each person at the end. I think if they cut out some of the competition and focused more on just delivering their charming songs and stories this would be a really great show.
