BIRMINGHAM SIDESHOW SOCIETY: 30 and 31 July

Birmingham

SIDESHOW SOCIETY
Crescent Theatre: Tkts 0121 643 5858, Perf 7.45
Runs: 2h 40m, one interval July 30 and 31
Review: Rod Dungate, July 30 2003

It's bold, brash, a bit rough round the edges: it's sometimes rude and very funny.
Fast sketch shows are popular television fare, it's a long time since I've seen one in a theatre in the olden days didn't we used to call them revues? Birmingham's Sideshow Society builds on a whole pile of cultural styles and references in their irreverent look at the world around us.

Their work is at its best when it's accurate and they let the comedy do the work for them: at times they push too hard and there's an inverse relationship with humour and force. Though Birmingham's Festival must be one of the City's best kept secrets, so the Sideshow Society worked their comedy with a modest audience. Perhaps a more informal relaxed atmosphere would open up the show more.

A high spot one of my very favourite moments is a marvellous sketch when Laurence Saunders auditions with LET'S CALL THE WHOLE THING OFF. A terrific, foolish, and bonkersly logical conversation takes place as they try to correct his pronunciation to make the song work 'I say tomato. You say tomato' (vary the 'A' sound at will): the frustrated auditionee eventually explodes 'Not even the queen says pot-aah-to!' (I bet she does by the way.)

Such verbal gymnastics produce many highlights. Saunders sets up a model look-alike prostitute agency. To make this work you have to use a Black Country accent (for the uninitiated try North Country) it's called Fuck a Look-Alike. He can then say 'Would you like to book a Fuck a Look-Alike?' - Try it saying it that is, it just makes you laugh.

A couple not hiring a hook-nosed, pointy-hatted old hag (Mark Logan) as a baby sitter is very funny. When the couple admit it's because she's a witch she accuses them of oppressing an ethnic minority. PC gives rise to much humour throughout 'Jimmy Hendrix couldn't've been gay why would he choose to be in two minorities?'

I enjoyed, too, a couple (Simon Ravenhill and long-suffering wives expert Andrea Wilson) explaining to their child where he came from it's all to do with Special Cuddles I gather. The couple fall out, specially over Daddy who's been having cuddles with another Daddy, Special Backward Cuddles. Naughty Daddy! More joys - a grotesque couch potato smiling beatifically while speaking only in bingo rhymes Logan in creepy mode, a doctor trying to get a patient's clothes off Ravenhill in inimitable seductive mode, and an exorcism in which the Devil is defeated by the priests playing ABBA (my sympathies are with the Devil.)

It's all good, rude fun, with appropriate satire. A bit of tightening up of some material might help and some tougher punchlines (though they're always the most difficult.)

SIDESHOW SOCIETY
Written and performed by Mark Logan, Dave Nicholds, Simon Ravenhill, Laurence Saunders and Andrea Wilson

2003-07-31 10:22:53