Wednesday 29 January 2014

All Our Friends Are Dead, re:play festival 2014

At this year’s re:play festival, comedy pair Katie Norris and Sinead Parker continue their occasionally macabre and wilfully tasteless sketch ‘n’ song showcase ‘All Our Friends Are Dead’, as seen at the Edinburgh Fringe and elsewhere. Political correctness is ditched (seriously, nothing and nobody is out of bounds) in favour of jaw-dropping ‘you can’t say that’ moments driven by the twosome’s strong character-based comedy – think Little Britain rather than Mel and Sue.

Amongst audience favourites are corrupt versions of Disney songs, less ‘bastardised’ and more ‘made orphans of’. For instance, contrived individualism (‘I’m reading Sylvia Plath actually, but in Japanese…’) and gimmicky personality add-ons (‘Can I have a latte, and can you write my name in the foam please…’) are hilariously pulled apart in ‘Everybody Wants To Be  A Twat’. I’m still singing it now.

At this point Norris and Parker’s formidable performance skills are a small step ahead of their writing but the pace is so rollicking and the material so broad that if you don’t like one sketch there’s another one just around the corner with your name on it.

I am personally recovering from exposure to the funny/bleak persona of Brian, with his carton of juice, urine-stained trousers, and tiny wife in the attic with nothing but a hotline to Domino’s and a rocking chair to keep her company. Until now… Single to Royston Vasey please…



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