Review by Steve Bennett

A winning sense of juvenile, silly fun pervades the 50 minutes, which crack along at a refreshingly brisk pace. A spoof movie trailer for Lost In The Jungle Of Nazi Vampires sets the level, with a succession of quickfire gags that are not always brilliant, but brief and witty enough.

There’s nothing especially ambitious about the writing throughout the show, which sometimes leans to heavily on a stupidly exaggerated delivery or phrasing to get the laugh, but it’s all broadly enjoyable stuff, delivered with verve.

Ed Gamble’s cheeky, cuddly manner and benign grin makes him a recidivist scene-stealer, and gave the show much of its charm. Pete Riley has a talent for foppish deadpan, and the lanky Tom Neenan also shows promise with a keen sense of timing.

However, both Nishant Kumar and token women Katy Barker were underused, the latter mostly bearing the brunt of post-ironic gags about how ugly and fat she is, though she is neither

There’s a slick, professional spirit to all they do, and some of the sketches had a breakout appeal: a gone-to-seed Popeye, useless fugitive hunters, a DVD commentary, the nonsensical kids’ TV show Fact Attack. The rule tends to be that the shorter the scene, the funnier it is, which perhaps demonstrates an immaturity in the writing that struggles to extend a joke.

But there’s an appealing playfulness to the larger-than-life performances to suggest at least some of the team have a comedy future, even if at the moment their offering is not so much an Adventure Fantastique as an Adventure Proportionné – an adequate adventure.

Reviewed by: Steve Bennett

Review date: 1 Jan 2007
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett