Canal Café Theatre returns to the Fringe with their brand of political satire poking fun at the year’s events. With this year being such a huge one not only for London but the whole of Great Britain, there’s plenty of material available. As ever, their victims range from highbrow to pop culture. The Olympics, the Jubilee, the European debt crisis and the Leveson inquiry are all under fire, mixed up with, amongst others, Fearne Cotton, Andy Murray and 50 Shades of Grey. There really is something for everyone here.
Of course, the highest targets are the biggest and easiest to shoot, so David Cameron and Nick Clegg recur throughout the show. The jokes may not be the most original but they’re almost guaranteed to raise a laugh. Will Clegg ever have his say?
The jokes come thick and fast in a series of short but swift and focused scenes. They may not develop during the course of the revue but the show is so dense with humour it doesn’t matter. Popular songs and show tunes are reworked in hilarious style and comedy sketches are brimming with punch-lines. Apart from the odd time-filler, nearly every scene is a winner. It’s the voiceover that steals the show though, with a series of funny, pithy one-liners used to mask scene changes.
The talented performers are all-singing, all-dancing comedians with comic timing in spades. Luke Coldham especially stood out with astoundingly realistic impressions of Prince Philip and Alan Carr. Special mention must also be given to Chris Peake who accompanies the whole show tirelessly.
At times the black comedy is a little close to the bone - the Scots jokes didn’t go down so well with the local audience - and be warned, this show is not suitable for children or the faint hearted. Yet 2012 has been a stellar year for the news and so, in turn, this year’s NewsRevue is a comic triumph.
