Lorna Watson and Ingrid Oliver are exceptional comic performers. It is one thing to make an audience laugh through carefully constructed witticisms, as they do here with excellent timing and persistence. But it is quite another to encourage a barrel full of laughs (that's right "a barrel") through facial expression alone.
Watson and Oliver blend physicality and quality writing to create a performance both funny and questionably arousing. They possess a talent for observational comedy and their attention to the smallest comic detail does not go unappreciated.
Their sketches vary from the mimicry of the mundane to the exploitation of absurdity and in every case, played very funny. The gender of their characters fluctuates throughout the performance an aspect of the show that seemed to appeal to the audience, filled with an equal balance of men and women.
Some of their funniest sketches consisted of a Pride and Prejudice parody; the gentleman and the blind paralytic, The Apprentice style bee-hive interview, the office leaving party a la The Last Supper and their interpretation of how the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony could look on a budget of around £23.
Although these sketches gathered the more rapturous of laughs, most of the performance left you at the very least chuckling. The only minor criticism would be that, at times, some of their ingenious conceptions were not quite explored to their full potential. Apart from that, you could not expect to see a better sketch show.
Their style has been compared to the comedic royalty that is French and Saunders, and understandably so, what with being women... and a duo... and very funny. However, there is something slightly wackier and more dynamic in their performance material which may challenge this reputation. They are not a copy, they are comedy evolution, and their future is looking prosperous.
Times: 4.00pm 19-27 August 2007
Copyright Lauren Quinn, 19 August 2007. First Published EdinburghGuide.com