Young, blonde, tall and attractive Ed Gamble and Hagrid-lookalike Ray Peacock at first glance seem an unlikely pair. However, on closer inspection one realises that they have a very special connection - they’re both big children.
Peacock and Gamble can in fact best be described as children’s TV presenters for our inner kid. For an hour we live vicariously through them - the naughty children we have either left behind us long ago or never were to begin with. Together they demonstrate the unashamed egotism of two three-year-olds, and throw tantrums about their friends who have become successful celebrities ‘on the telly’.
The pair’s acting skills are exceptional. They truly and fully become the characters they’ve created for themselves and it’s fascinating to watch. While in character, they pretend to struggle with a variety of sketches, stand-up routines, ventriloquism acts,and well-known one-liner jokes - dissecting, exposing and subverting each of the genres. It’s character comedy at its best and the humour derives from watching these two incredibly immature characters try to be sophisticated comics.
Peacock delivers his jokes with the same excited pride and the same hesitance and lack of understanding of a toddler just beginning to tell jokes himself. When he’s caught out on something he invents ludicrous stories or he blames ‘the naughty duck’, tactics which I’m sure many of us would love to get away with. Gamble usually takes the role of the older brother in these situations and in others. He scolds Peacock, explains things to him and even tries to help him put his shirt on the right way. However, Gamble too has his moments of mischief and he will often stare into the audience for lengthy periods of time with a big, toothy smile on his face.
The telly predicament, however, is a real one which should be addressed. On the one hand, Peacock and Gamble more than deserve to be on television. On the other, a certain something will be lost on the screen. Peacock at one point high fives a man in the front row and says ‘Aha! You see, you can’t do that on the telly!’ It’s a joke of course, but Peacock is right: a certain solidarity between cackling, bemused audience members would be lost. This was evident from the video clips the pair showed us throughout, which were entertaining but still felt like distractions from the real performances of the two men in front of us.
So, before they embark on a potential career in television, go and see their show. It’s everything that shouldn’t be funny but is. Take a gamble on these guys - they’re raring to go.
