Fat Tongue
Fat Tongue
Pleasance Dome @ 18:15 5th – 28th (not 8th, 15th) £7.50 (£6.00), £8.50 (£7.00)
*****
Fat Tongue are Sophie Black, Seb Cardinal and Dustin Demri-Burns and there are plenty of surprises and much joy to be found in their delightful brand of sketch comedy. The London based group have a wonderfully bizarre take on life, viciously askew and exquisitely cynical.

The hour long show features recurring themes and characters, touching upon deranged dating, designer adoption, porn star tea-breaks and backpacking movie heroes.

Passing throughout their comedy is a curious obsession with famous figures from popular culture, and their magnificently cockeyed take on celebrity lies somewhere between that of Reeves and Mortimer and Leigh Francis. The necessity to accurately resemble or impersonate stars is brazenly disregarded with their Angelina Jolie sounding rather like Zippy from Rainbow, Cher portrayed as a violent chav and Brad Pitt poncing about with a face covered in sellotape.

There are persistent sketches and characters that further engage the audience and coax you into their world, incorporating aspects of catchphrase comedy and moments of cheering topicality like Zinedine Zidane and his French footballing buddies “getting the old team back together again” as though preparing for one last heist.

Their show is reassuringly ridiculous, flipping scenarios on their head and juxtaposing circumstances wildly. The brusque style demanded by all three featuring in most of the sketches sits comfortably with their crudely composed costumes and wigs.

Fat Tongue’s humour is so enticing, there’s a strong possibility that TV people could be sniffing around before long. Coming out of the box in the corner of the living room could well drastically alter the beauty and appeal of their live show, but doubtless, like The League of Gentlemen, they’ll be able to adapt their style and methods to suit the medium perfectly. Watch out for Fat Tongue they should rightfully be on the up.

by Ian Phillips