We’ve waited a while – since Pappy’s epic Last Show Ever, perhaps – for a sketch troupe that the fringe really takes to its heart. Might Daphne answer the call? It’s feeling that way, as the threesome’s Second Show consolidates the promise of their first. In some ways, it’s an improvement: the contributions of Phil Wang, George Fouracres and Jason Forbes are more evenly balanced, and there’s an increased lightness to their interplay and their material. Mind you, a handful of these new sketches left me cold.
What’s lovely is the easeful flow between set piece and backchat – the latter sometimes concerning the intricate ethnicities of “the UK’s most racially diverse sketch trio”. Occasionally, race surfaces in the sketches, like the one about “chronic sass” afflicting black stereotypes, or a closing sea shanty that posits, possibly, an updated British folk identity.
More often, in a show that’s conventional in structure if not in style, Daphne offer uncomplicated fun – when Forbes plays an inappropriate house-hunter, say, or when two crooners compete to perform the most attention-seeking melisma. Their odd-fitting personae harmonise more smoothly this year, but Fouracres still stands out as (for example) a slave-driver Willy Wonka with a pitch-perfect 1940s-Hollywood voice. I found his monstrous northerner parody of Daphne from Frasier harder to love, while a handful of skits – the airport shop, the Paxman-esque interviewer – are weak, mystifying or possibly both. But missteps are easy to overlook from this winning trio, a sketch team developing an offbeat style that’s entirely their own.
- At the Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 28 August. Box office: 0131-226 0000.
