Comedy review: Giants Are Fjörd, Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh

For anyone who remembers Armstrong and Miller's spoof Norwegian hair metal duo Strijka, Fjörd are their spiritual inheritors and scrub up very well in the comparison.

Giants Are Fjrd, Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33)

Giants Are Fjörd, Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh * * *

Giants' Will Hislop and Barney Fishwick have abandoned their previous sketch showcases for a single narrative, relating the comeback of their Nordic Eurodance sensations in song and earnest idiocy. Reunited, Lars (Fishwick) and Ulrich (Hislop) revel in their own self-perpetuated legend, reflect on the tensions that caused their split and rail against a record industry that has consistently failed to appreciate their songwriting genius.

Lars is the more oblivious fool, having embraced his spiritual side after infidelity cost him love, while Ulrich is shiftier, more enigmatic, turning out to be the mysterious figure in virtually all of their tunes. With trite lyrics, cliched melodies and some great gags of misdirection, they don't restrict themselves to the cheese of Eurodance, venturing into boyband pop and extracts from their ill-fated Harry Potter musical, largely lost on me with only passing knowledge of the franchise. Little matter though, as Hislop and Fishwick invest their creations with nobility of stupidity, their reunion growing only more humiliating and recriminatory as old wounds are unpicked.

Until 25 August

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