Comedy review: Pappys Fun Club's World Record Attempt

Published on Friday 28 August 2009 14:33

PAPPYS FUN CLUB'S WORLD RECORD ATTEMPT: 200 SKETCHES IN AN HOUR **** PLEASANCE COURTYARD (VENUE 33)

CAN the Fun Club smash this record and appease their enigmatic, temperamental benefactor Pappy for another year? Who cares, because this seemingly arbitrary target of performing 200 sketches in their biggest Fringe venue to date offers a great excuse for some simulated expressions of madcap panic and confirmation of the group's reputation for controlled chaos.

Notwithstanding the joyous inconsequence of the show itself, there's precious little wackiness for wackiness's sake here, and on the rare occasion a gag falls flat the Pappys quartet are swift to humorously acknowledge the clanger and sharp enough to follow it with a stronger skit.

Several of the set-pieces are necessarily snappy, while others make a play upon their senseless time-wasting, though in the main they simply unfold at the appropriate pace for the gags.

Recurring characters include a T-Rex awkwardly thrust into joining in all the games his stumpy little arms make him ill-equipped for; Robert Pershing Wadlow, the tallest (and on this evidence, perhaps chippiest) man ever; and hook-handed, porridge mobster Terry Quaker, furiously hell-bent on converting everyone to Quakerism. The latter two are played by Tom Parry, surely the man for whom the word tomfoolery was coined, his bellowing force of personality, instinctive comic timing and commendable commitment to making Matthew Crosby, Brendan Dodds and Ben Clark corpse with his ad-libbing ensuring that the show retains an unpredictable anarchy.

Above all, there's variety to the group's humour, ranging from groan-worthy puns to a wonderfully silly, almost music hall turn in which Clark and Parry enthusiastically start poking each other after finding that their body parts emit stylophone notes. Two hundred sketches or not, it adds up to another strong showing from a firmly established Fringe act.

Until 31 August. Today 7:20pm.