Kitten Killers

The amount of energy going into Kitten Killers’ non-stop hour is one of its greatest assets. Their comedy itself is often too unbalanced to truly lose oneself in, but the unwavering faith they display in their material ensures that every punchline lands with feline confidence and, more often than not, a roomful of laughs. The name of the act is explained in an endearingly grotesque introductory sequence and serves as an introduction to the four girls, whose aim appears to be to challenge our expectations of them.

Kitten Killers show the makings of a top-notch sketch comedy act. If they trim the pun-fluff and sharpen the bite of their better sketches, they have every chance.

They are partially successful, showcasing a great deal of gross-out sketches, many of which feature amusing concepts that frustratingly fail to take off. There’s a lengthy, ambiguous discussion of teabagging and a scene about Brian Cox’s close relationship with a gorilla. Meanwhile, the terrifying “Minge-ician” (a gynaecologist and amateur magician) delights in pulling a series of absurd objects from, well, the obvious place. It’s the intense speed of the scenes that deprives them of the success they deserve: there are far too many individual sketches here, making many of the better ones fall short of their potential in the rush to squeeze everything in.

Some of the sketches last only thirty seconds before we dash into the next one. Often these are one-offs based on terrible puns and misunderstandings, but they’re far too short to trigger any latent humour. The troupe seems to want congratulating for a particularly rude talking clock being revealed as Greenwich Mean Time, but while this idea might be funny as an absurd recurring character intruding upon other sketches, or presented in conjunction with some of the other bad puns (that’s you, Hooker Duck), there’s little joy to be found in it in this form. At times like these, the group appear to have spent far more time thinking about their props than their sketches.

It’s when they actually buy into their concepts that they really succeed. The sketches involving the entire group tend to last the longest and are thus often a delight to watch. They don swimming caps and race against each other as a group of flailing spermatozoa; they engineer exceedingly warm audience interaction in a sketch about charity sponsoring; they sing about the sexual woes of those still living with their parents. We can forgive the tired trope of the bridal bouquet-fight because of its excellent physical comedy. The highlight of the hour, though, is undoubtedly its seedy song-and-dance finale, which I won’t spoil here.

Kitten Killers show the makings of a top-notch sketch comedy act. If they trim the pun-fluff and sharpen the bite of their better sketches, they have every chance.