Sam Nicoresti and Tom Burgess used to be on Nickelodeon until "the incident we can't talk about", happened. Now they're trying to bring back the dizzying glory days they enjoyed as two eight-year-olds in 1997 with their reunion tour. Presumably considerably taller but not much more mature, they're hitting the live sketch circuit to try and make all the ladies want to kiss them again, but it's not as easy as that. Fractiousness creeps in from the offset which ensures the reunion performance will never be smooth sailing.
It is silly and it is messy and yet, amongst this monster's garbled attempts to present as human, there are small recognisable flashes of genius
Sam & Tom From TV is not for everyone. It is anarchic, directionless and sometimes just plain weird. The whole thing has an air of "let's just see what happens" which will make some audience members feel very uneasy. The show is a Frankenstein's Monster thrown together from the limbs and organs of Monty Python, The Young Ones and Reeves & Mortimer; a marvel to some, terrifying to others. It is silly and it is messy and yet, amongst this monster's garbled attempts to present as human, there are small recognisable flashes of genius inspired by its composite parts - a bizarre instructional French video, silly disguises and a case of Sam forgetting quite how Knock Knock jokes work.
It would be great to see this show with a little more structure behind it. Whilst their shambolic nonsense is sometimes thrilling, it has a tendency to fall flat and appear self-indulgent, revealing the real Sam and Tom behind the stage Sam & Tom (and there are already quite enough Sams and Toms as it is by the end).
Perhaps caught up in the madness of it all, the biggest fault with the show is that it doesn't really know what it is. It leaps between sketches, skits, songs, improv and audience interaction without ever really settling and making the most of each opportunity. Jokes are left unfinished mid-air and tangle the already fairly tenuous plot which is dragged along by an anarchic, but fairly useless, lack of commitment. They ask for more belief from their audience than it sometimes seems they have in themselves.
Watch Sam & Tom From TV with a spirit of willingness. Leave conventions and expectations at the door and, chances are, you'll be able to see what is really special about these two but equally, you'll be wishing they'd take this opportunity to make the most of their exciting, left-field wit by channelling it into something with a bit more finesse.
