Paramount Comedy
Friday, 23 January 2004

Reviewed by Matt Brito

In the same way that ‘The Office’ has raised the bar for the humble sitcom, so ‘Little Britain’ has forever raised the bar for the sketch show format, or to give it its technical name – broken comedy. By their very nature sketch shows are hit-and-miss but their redeeming virtue is that you’re only a minute away from a new sketch that you might like. Performing sketch shows live on stage adds further problems: The time scale and simple fact that you’re performing in front of an audience limits the time you can feasibly spend on costume/set changes.

For a prime example of exactly how you should put on a live sketch show, you could do a lot worse than watching the Edinburgh preview performance by the Dutch Elm Conservatoire (DEC).

Edinburgh previews are often the bare bones of what is to come – usually performed script in hand and with as many pauses as jokes. However, the DEC preview – comprising Stephen Evans, Jim Field Smith, Rufus Jones, Jordan Long and Renton Skinner – is as polished as a bald man’s cranium

Sketches ranging from a kleptomaniac claiming to have survived the Gresford Coal Mining Disaster to a waiter breaking the ice at a wake by serving canapes are seamlessly woven together by the talented quintet.

Like the best comedy, the troupe’s humour is indefinable and attempts to pigeonhole them are fruitless – it just works. There wasn’t really a duff sketch in the set. The one sketch I felt was weakest (involving a group of policeman attempting to talk down a suicide jumper) took a surreal turn and as it reached its climax, had become my favourite sketch of the show.

I guess the best compliment I could give DEC would be to say that many of their sketches are up there with the caliber of ‘Little Britain’. The competition will have to be exceptionally strong at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe for this show not to pick up a Best Newcomer nomination.

And most tellingly, it passed the ultimate litmus test for comedy – people were quoting lines from the show on the way out.

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