It was with boundless energy that the five-strong Revue troupe leaped onstage and it seemed that this was an energy which would not dwindle - even as the quality of the proceeding sketches did. Full of enthusiasm and all very well-meaning, this local sketch-writing society have seen their fair share of Fringe festivals, but still don't seem to have got it right.
That's not to say that the hour was completely devoid of laughs - a charity benefitting the recently second-home-less was particularly on the money, and one scene in which a secret agent assumes his interrogator is actually there for sex had real promise. Overall, however, there were far too many sketches which seemed to lack the all-important punchline that would really bring them home, or others whose surrealism was too impenetrable to extract any laughs from the crowd.
The cast, sensing their audience's mood, did not react in the best of ways. Still bafflingly enthusiastic, they responded to a lack of audible laughter with yelled explanations of why a certain joke was funny, making a passable skit turn sour and arrogant.
A midday crowd is generally more forgiving than their late-night analogue, but each scene was just a little too long for comfort. We passed the point of no return and searched desperately for the point of what we'd just seen, by which point we're already halfway into another near-pointless sketch.
Enthusiastic to the point of mania, and with some nuggets of gold hiding beneath the surface, this is a varied hour of comedy. Hopefully there are a few other sketches waiting in the wings that can save the show.
