Hannah Croft and Fiona Pearce are masters (mistresses?) of live sketch show comedy.
Their show tonight is every bit as good as their reputation, with sketches that run more or less seamlessly one after another, with an enormous cast of weird characters, some of them new, some of them familiar to their fans (me).
There are suicidal middle class housewives, grief stricken with the awfulness of not finding what they want in Waitrose; there’s a mad tickling therapist –yes, really; there are marital rows about all sorts of meaningless non-problems; there is gentle audience teasing, as they too are seemingly characters, regardless of gender, in the sketches.
What’s the real pleasure in all this mayhem is the total rapport between the two of them, and their amazing ability to switch character and gender faultlessly, in an instant, even mid-sketch sometimes; and to do all of this at high energy and keep it at all times creasingly funny.
They should be available on prescription.
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Reviewer: John Christopher Wood | Star rating: ****
Croft & Pearce performed at the Widcombe Social Club in Bath on Thursday 28th March 2019.