Review by Steve Bennett

There’s one scene, however, that’s absolutely brilliant. He’s a loans clerk with no clue about finance, firing off random, personal and irrelevant questions to the embarrassed and bewildered young couple – played by Anna Crilly and Colin Hoult – who seek his help. The confusion and cross-talk is beautifully executed, and the weird atmosphere that pervades the whole uncomfortable situation subtly exploited for laughs. It’s properly hilarious – but sadly only about ten minutes of the whole show.

Mohammed’s second-best character is another awkward one, an estate agent showing an unseen couple around a house in a dodgy area, flirting unapologetically but inefficiently with the woman. Like a presenter of some late-night rip-off TV phone-in, he talks relentlessly and desperately to fill any silence, no matter what nonsense actually comes out. The slow revelations about the rough neighbourhood provide a smattering of good lines, and his pin-sharp mimes show a keen sense of timing, but the overall pace is too slow.

Another creation is a TV anthropologist-cum-naturalist, for whom Mohammed has captured precisely the timbre, intonations and rhythms of every travel-channel David Attenborough wannabe. But there’s little beyond it than that faithful recreation.

Finally, we come to the weakest character, but the one given the lion’s share of the hour: an inept anger management tutor. His unfocussed persona is established very quickly, but we go through a series of sluggish exercises to reinforce it. Weak laughs are spaced so agonisingly far apart that this over-long sketch quickly becomes frustrating.

Totting up, Mohammed’s 4uarters comprise one four-star sketch, one three, and two twos, algebraically making it a two-and-three-quarter-star show - even if Mohammed himself is a four-star performer.

Reviewed by: Steve Bennett

Review date: 1 Jan 2007
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett