This is Tuesday night at the Social Club (Although it’s Friday night at the Rondo) with ghastly Northern club comic Pat Bashford (Kevin Dewsbury) and put-upon barmaid Cheri Anne (Bexie Archer) – and the show starts as it means to go on: from the title of the piece and the wrong date, everything else is absolutely in no way sensible.
There are utterly pointless games that hapless audience members are bullied into participating, with nonsensical scoring systems; there are endless really terrible jokes from Pat (and for once “so bad it’s good” actually works, where the joke is in taking the piss out of the joke. Cleverly stupid.).
As a surreally over-the-top take on clubland it never drops the pace, and the unabashed tastelessness of the characters’ attitudes is part of the charm.
There’s a brilliant lesson in how to be a pantomime dame, with balloons, obviously, as breasts.
There’s a spot the parts of the vagina competition, there’s terrible poetry, appalling singing, even a visit from Mr Blobby. If this sounds as if it’s not your cup of tea, don’t be fooled.
This duo have tremendous left-field comic imagination, and the weirdly oddball gags come thick and fast in this riotous farrago of nonsense.
This is far more original comedy than at first sight it seems, and richly enjoyable.
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Reviewer: John Christopher Wood | Star rating: ****
