Brighton Fringe review by Steve Bennett

Oh dear, do these two – or sometimes three – have commitment issues.

Irish comics Giles Brody and Colin Chadwick often come up with decent ideas, but don't commit in either performance or writing to wring the most out of them. As a result, it feels like nothing more than bad improv as they start with a strong premise which then peters out to nothing as they quite openly struggle to think of how to exploit the set-up.

Take, for the case of not spoiling one of their better premises, the suggestion of Godzilla downgraded from saving cities to saving lost kittens, but destroying dozens of buildings and killing hundreds of people each time. That takes half a sentence to explain, but the full scene between the monster and the chief of police simply reiterates the same information in different forms of words; no build, nor reveal, just diminishing returns.

Across the show several lines amount to little more that 'yes, well, it's, erm…' just to break up the monologue, where a real writer might have put statements that provide conflict or advancement. Instead it adds to the feeling that neither Brody nor Chadwick know what's going on in their own show, exacerbated by their almost apologetic delivery. Sometime collaborator Alison Spittle is slightly better, if only because it seems obvious she's roped in to make up the numbers.

They can't really assume characters, either, so each is only marginally different to their own hesitant real personalities to the extent that the transition between skits and between-sketch banter is often undetectable.

It means their strong ideas are wasted – God holding a town hall meeting, a Teen Pope or Chadwick literally going out with a real sweetie show a lot of promise and chuck up a few decent lines. But even these don't have any sense of direction, and fizzle out rather the being tied up with a decent payoff. So by the time we get to more generic ideas later in the show, such as the Dragon's Den pastiche, it's starting to feel like a long hour.

Review date: 5 May 2015
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett