Theatre review: PALPitations

Proving that you can still laugh '“ or else you would cry '“ in broken Britain, comedy duo PALP come at/for our social anxieties, while wearing ridiculous costumes, with a handful of sketches broadly dealing with crises of masculinity, the most powerful of which is dispatched first.

Star rating: ***

Venue: theSpace @ Jury’s Inn (Venue 260)

We are met with a freaky faceless figure in full body suit. This is a man with a purpose, it transpires, a farcical ninja inspired to enact his twist on social responsibility following a racist encounter in a kebab shop. The comedy is silly yet chilling in places, thanks to the precision pitched performances.

Elsewhere, PALP wield a reasonably sharp knife with their caricatures of vacuous girls sharing their petty first world problems and a narcissistic, obsessive bodybuilder, whose penis has decided to object to the regime.

PALPitations is short, lo-fi and definitely feels more like a sketch show than a piece of theatre, but there is potential here in the way the London duo come at their targets from the left-field, blending surrealism, satire and social comment with a raw skill.

Until tomorrow. Today 2:35pm.

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