Making their way north for the fourth year on the trot, Croft and Pearce have brought us their best show yet. Magnificent sketch after magnificent sketch tells the story of Dan and Jess, Spanky and the new receptionist, Julie and a bemused audience member. But these are more than character studies or brief skits about relationships- these are stories from a great, inter-connected comedic world told by two fantastically talented comedians. The tiny hilarious moments of the everyday are blown up and presented to us through brief scenes caught between evermore cataclysmic fights, and from the off we're brought into their world through an evening class in creative writing and a grudge against two friends.
With great writing and exceptional comic timing, Croft and Pearce have a fantastic knack at starting a vignette with low-key, subtle humour, before building up both energy and comedy, and taking us from the ridiculous to the sublime and back again.
Playing perfectly to their audience, Croft and Pearce return again and again to Jean and June, a pair of highly-strung society types constantly on the verge of breakdown over the trials and tribulations of buying side-tables and casserole dishes: As well as providing fantastic gags, this pair show a real depth of character that couldn't be achieved with just a fleeting scene, and it is by returning to existing stories that Croft and Pearce achieve the realism that sets this show apart. There are a lot of sketch shows at the Fringe every year, and a lot of double-acts of various types, but few in which the duo will inhabit their characters so fearlessly, and the effect, quite simply, is hilarious.
With great writing and exceptional comic timing, Croft and Pearce have a fantastic knack at starting a vignette with low-key, subtle humour, before building up both energy and comedy, and taking us from the ridiculous to the sublime and back again. Underneath it all, what we see are two great friends on stage doing what they love. They play with their characters, their audience and each frantic conversation with ease, and have us laughing from start to finish.
