They're not household names and they have no TV profile yet, but here the Pajama Men are, embarking on a month-long West End run. Their success is richly deserved, and even if Just the Two of Each of Us isn't their best show, it's still delightfully left-field and skilful.
The American duo's latest tale concerns a beast that surfaces every 700 years, and the quest of a time-travelling king and his wizard sidekick to vanquish it. But that description simplifies the intricacy of the story: Mark Chavez and Shenoah Allen play a dozen other characters, and dot between timezones and subplots that is more narrative spaghetti than linear storytelling.
One or two characters are more interchangeable than in the past (I've seen the show twice and I'm still not quite sure who's who), and it ends with more of a whimper than a dramatic (or comic) bang. But the flaws are easy to forgive when the interplay between the performers is so alchemical, and when the tangential sense of humour produces such riches along the way.
Some of the pair's best material – both visual and verbal – is partly improvised. Several routines show their roots in the rehearsal room, as when Allen mimes the removal and reattachment of a prosthetic arm in increasingly improbable ways. There are also strenuous puns dressed up as hardboiled dialogue (there's a great play on the phrase "all killer, no filler") and several oddball characters to join the duo's pantheon – including a man cursed with finding everything too easy, his anthropomorphised motorbike and a horse that tries to resist a dying man's kiss. The balance is adroitly judged between narrative movement and comic play; musician Kevin Hume contributes a swooning Belle and Sebastian-like score. This small-town fantasy disaster epic, performed in nightwear, is subtle, spry and silly in equal measure.
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