The Lead Pencil sketch show is colourful, unabashedly silly and highly hyper. Maddie, Louise and Dave burst onto the stage with such a high level of energy that it’s doubtful the trio will be able to maintain it for a whole hour - and yet somehow they do.
The show is a great hit with the audience and the characters are hugely likable.
Their sketches are built on daft puns, gags and some inventive comedy tunes. Think singing sharks, a Facebook versus Twitter song battle, dim cowboys and dithering surgeons. They keep it light but very loud, with a few innuendos and references that are slightly below the belt . Whilst the comedians themselves have great chemistry, fun characters and comic timing, the sketches are sometimes so silly that they become a bit tiresome. Transitions involve upbeat and catchy songs from the nineties and noughties, accompanied by flamboyant dancing, which keeps the nonsense going. The entire show is a hyperactive person’s haven.
The props are cleverly crafty, hand drawn and painted on cardboard. They’re reminiscent of Blue Peter/Art Attack arts and crafts and prove to be humorous aids. I particularly appreciated the animal masks. Additionally, their costumes were outlined as though they too had been drawn and coloured in. All of this added a nice quirky touch.
The trio use plenty of audience participation, and some spectators get quite into the roles they are given. Certain sketches are built around comedy songs too and while some of these are humorous, they are weaker on the whole than the spoken scenes. The finale for example, consisting of a song about counting, was a little weak. Given that some of the other sketches and songs - such as the ‘Shark Life’ song - were better, it might have been stronger to finish on one of these scenes. This aside, the show is a great hit with the audience and the characters are hugely likable. In amongst heavy shows influenced by current affairs and more complex topics, Lead Pencil have used their wits and combined talent to show that the simplest and silliest concepts can be a nice break from a more tense and serious reality.
