Sometimes it all comes down to a silly voice. The last time I saw a show featuring these two comics (then part of the sketch troupe Fat Tongue), the funniest feature was Seb Cardinal's pronunciation of the words "Billy Elliot". At this year's fringe, he is showcasing an equally inspired caricature of the broadcaster Mark Cousins. Ulster vowels thicker than Irish stew, a face that looks as if it's trying to eat itself, and an obsequious interview manner ("From where did you glean such knowledge?") – it's all so daft, it's irresistible.
The point of the skit isn't impersonation, however. Cardinal's Cousins rip-off appears in a sketch that inverts the relationship between celebrity and obscurity. Here, a Foot Locker employee is interviewed as if he were a movie icon. Such material was characteristic of Fat Tongue, from whom the double act Cardinal Burns (Seb and Dustin Demri-Burns) have recently splintered.
Later in the show, we enter a world in which potatoes are given the status of jewels. These aren't one-note gags; they're absurdist dramatic scenarios given a chance to breathe, and their world-turned-upside-down conjectures are playful and provoking.
There are few misfires; the interplay of silliness and dark intelligence is just about perfectly pitched. Even when the humour is simplistic, it's convincingly done by two confident and complementary performers. Demri-Burns's Japanese English-language student works on the same principle as Cardinal's Cousins: identify a characteristic and spectacularly exaggerate it. The result is a bizarre, cartoonish depiction of deference, as Burns smiles, squeaks "sorr-eee" and shrinks into himself until he is practically invisible.
Fans of preposterous stereotypes may also enjoy the Turkish minicab drivers who croon their own version of the Kings of Leon hit Sex On Fire: "Oh, my tax disc's expired." Had they ventured an "Oh, this sketch show's on fire", few present would have disagreed.
