The title of the show, Flyerman 2: This Time it’s Funny is perhaps a little misleading. For its first part, despite a quick reference halfway through the 50-minute sketch show from the comedy duo, Steve Davis and David Kurk, about how they were taking on the personas of people at the Fringe who were flyering, this part of the title seemed to bear no resemblance to the rest of the show. The second part of the title, This Time its Funny, I am afraid, was a little too far from the truth.
Unfortunately, the piece seemed to lack direction. Sketch artists can sometimes struggle to connect their work, making it one whole piece that flows seamlessly. This was certainly true of Davis and Kurk in this show, where each sequence seemed to be stranded and quite misplaced. An example of this was when the audience were asked to stand up if they had a birthday in the last year (inducing awkward titters) and then everyone was asked to sit down unless their birthday was that day. The lady who did indeed have a birthday that day was merely applauded and then the show continued. This felt badly mistimed.
The material that they had written did not seem to resonate with any part of the audience, resulting in many of their jokes falling flat. Although they had previously written the script for the show, Kurk seemed unsure of his lines and quite regularly tended to stumble over them. There was a period in the show where they promised the audience an improvisation, asking the group of 20 of us for ideas. ‘Lulu’ and ‘Afghanistan’ were among some of the suggestions. However they then flipped the piece of paper over only to discover ‘yesterday’s’ ideas, and therefore were able to return to a prepared script.
There was some awkward back and forth between the two characters- their continual jokes about money and who was paying for whom became quickly tiresome. The cardinal sin of a comedy show is to not make people laugh and this duo failed to rouse any significant laughter in their audience. Perhaps next time, it will be funny. But then again, perhaps it won’t.
