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A young crowd squashed into a metal bunker was an enthusiastic audience for the equally young duo – the two ‘white guys’, Paul G Raymond and Luke Manning turned out to be one white and one Asian, actually – with lots of energy to see them through a fast paced variety of sketches. There were times when I wondered if I was going to impatiently sit through the hour in a sweaty bunker without skipping out early, but then somewhere about half way through they upped the ante, and a crazed wave of giddiness took the whole room with them, including me.

****

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I’ve been pretty pleased that the dodgy era of ‘ironic’ rape culture jokes seems to have passed, and this new round of youthful comics are wrestling with important issues like sexism and racism in some novel, clever and and life-affirming ways. The show had enough structure to please in a way a satisfying novel does; wrapping up the threads cast out at the beginning, forcing us to remember them as they weaved them back into our consciousness towards the end, but also with enough leeway to allow some pockets of ad-libbing blatantly self-conscious meta comedy, which surprisingly became funnier the more they pushed it. They took full advantage of manipulating the audience and teased the audience into ‘manipulating’ them.

****

Their sketches were increasingly on point as they continued, and as they drew energy from the crowd, they got more and more into character. They had some great skits involving a taxi driver and his passenger, that were highly realistic and quite poignant.They do a great piss take of particularly nauseating adverts and email scams; fleshing out all those fleeting silly thoughts we have about the absurd moments in the media and on the internet that most of us share. I’d feel too measly giving them three stars, because I really did enjoy their clever show. If they could have begun just a little punchier, and open the show with the same level of piquancy, energy and professionalism that they eventually attained, I wouldn’t be hesitating in any way to award them four stars. But here goes, guys, FOUR STARS! And next time, get on it from the outset!

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