“Are you having a good night?” compere Mae Martin keeps asking us, with mounting uncertainty as this late-night mixed bill proceeds. Her anxiety is justified: the show yields slim pickings, at least until its stellar final act, the sketch troupe Sheeps. Producers the Invisible Dot are associated with new comedy at its most creative, but three-quarters of this offering – the first of a nightly appointment, in a tent, at the Manchester international festival – has little that’s new, or very amusing, to offer.
Canadian comic Martin gets the most stage time, and it’s pleasant enough to spend it with her. But her stories about her gloomy mum and adolescent relationships are unexceptional, and when she ends one bit (about faking orgasms) with “there’s something funny about that, right?”, I started to crave a surer, sharper comic touch. Mancunian Phil Ellis has the virtue of being less consensual, but it’s not clear how much control he exerts over his apologetic, loser anti-comedy. A closing gag about missing children is audacious, but he doesn’t sell it. There’s a strong flavour to Ellie White and Natasia Demetriou’s Sexy American Girl Cousins spoof variety act, but I find its mix of comedy European accents, rude words and coerced crap sexiness a little dispiriting.
Sheeps (Daran Johnson, Alistair Roberts and Liam Williams) redeem the whole event, though, with 20 minutes of knowing, layered group comedy. A spoof Oliver Twist musical nails both theatrical cliche, and the cliche of sending it up. The flashback to how Williams chose sketches over sport is, like everything they do, ruthlessly arch. (“It’s great being huddled here with approximately seven boys.”) The risk of smugness is offset by a script generously stuffed with jokes, one or two irruptions of beguiling oddness, and the presence of three weird, strong personalities playing together beautifully. A show that faltered ends on a big high.
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At the Pavilion theatre, Manchester, tonight and Saturday, then 15-17 July, as part of the Manchester international festival
