Explicitly funny from the first chord, Phil Kay and Cameron St. Clair began with great dynamic and fantastic musical improvisation, maintaining a wonderful energy throughout the show. These two men know how to fuse excellent music with top quality comedy, but they also know how to grow fantastic beards.
There was plenty of audience interaction, thankfully without any heckling or controversial comments about the spectators. Kay managed to keep the audience involved in the performance in a good clean fun manner, which was both refreshing and hilarious. Still, comedy must have its edge and Kay’s choice of controversial comments were topical and relevant to Edinburgh today. He justified these jokes, I thought very aptly, saying ‘of course it’s not funny, but its life. So it is funny.’ It was intelligent comments like this that really made Kay stand out not only as a comedian, but as a prolific and mature performer.
There was a brief period in the middle of the show that let the rest of the performance down, though. During the space of three songs, the applause grew continually weaker, which was a shame since the rest of the show was so on the ball. The material got a little darker and slightly morbid, which the audience wasn’t really expecting and was not sure how to react to. Kay also made a few personal comments outside the songs that took the audience aback. Although thought provoking, I’m not sure a comedy show was really the place to share such macabre thoughts.
However, the show absolutely picked up toward the end; back to its previous high energy and good humour. Kay even made some wonderful gags about prawns.
The music remained tight and well-played throughout and it was clear Kay and St. Clair had spent a great deal of time learning one another’s rhythms. The lyrics were mostly quick-witted and intelligent, with only a few minor hiccups.
This is definitely a show I’d go see again; around half of it being improvisation it would probably be completely different next time. I would bet, though, that it would be equally as funny, energetic and witty every night.
