Ramadan as a fitness programme (“I lost 30lb in 30 days!”), trigger-happy Jewish settlers and Middle Easterners complaining about UK immigrants to Islamic State: the sketches in Come In! Sit Down! come with frisson for free. But the edginess is skin-deep in this new show from Muslim-Jewish collective the Muju Crew, which proposes that (as they sing in an opening number) “more unites us than divides us”. That harmonious agenda makes for consensual comedy: spirited, occasionally acute, and as broad in its own way as many of the media stereotypes and race caricatures the seven-strong company seek to undermine.
For much of the show, we’re treated to pushy Jewish mothers, ultra-conservative clerics and Islamic terrorists – or straightforward inversions of similar cliches, like the Muslim wife and her four submissive husbands. These familiar types are often brought to vivid life – I enjoyed Dominic Garfield’s passive-aggressive rabbi struggling to surrender his role to a woman. But the brushstrokes feel very broad over 80 minutes. There are some clumsy missteps, too. Taking scattershot aim at no obvious target, a scene about Isis beheadings, and another about New York Jews complaining that they’re no longer the prime target of mass murderers, risk seeming glib about seriously unpleasant subjects.
But some sub-par material, and the traditional, bordering on fusty, presentation (recent innovations in the sketch genre must have passed Muju by), are redeemed by charismatic performances – Garfield (with a tart Russell Brand mickey-take) and Lauren Silver in particular – and a few choice skits. The standout combines a Muslim girl’s romantic flight from Burnley for Syria with a soundtrack of Disney songs (“Let me go, let me go …”) Another places Israeli border guards in Brent Cross shopping centre, charged with admitting only the good Jews and debarring – I hate to say it – Jews who read the Guardian.
- At Tricycle, London, until 2 August. Box office: 020-7328 1000.
