As their ongoing success on Radio 4 attests, these are two performers on the top of their game
Returning to the Fringe with another slice of slickly made sketch comedy, Hannah Croft and Fiona Pearce once more impress with cleverly structured and impeccably acted comic vignettes. Their new show calls on a number of familiar characters to create an act full of off-kilter but recognisable situations from the funny side of the street.
There are several high points during the show, most notably Jean and June, a pair of highly-strung suburbanites facing a series of decidedly middle-class existential crises; and Dan, a man whose slightly vacant rictus grin is being shaken by his interactions with an amorous friend and a disappointed wife. These sketches move away from the gentler territory that much of the act inhabits to challenge the worldviews of their characters, albeit playfully - and they’re all the better for it.
Not all of the characters on show are as well realised, such as a mail-order pet entrepreneur who hides behind a dodgy accent for laughs, but when Croft and Pearce do hit the target, then the results are impressive – thanks in no small part to the eminently confident acting on show from both comedians.
As their ongoing success on Radio 4 attests, these are two performers on the top of their game. Croft and Pearce recently recorded a series for the broadcaster and if their Fringe show does suffer slightly from being soothingly inoffensive in the way that mainstream BBC radio comedy sometimes is, it is greatly enhanced by the intelligence and wit that characterises the medium.
As the act goes on, Croft and Pearce draw together many of the different strands of the show, offering glimpses of connections and a wider world in which their weird and wacky characters inhabit. It’s a world that is well worth visiting.
