Folk The World: Flight Of The Conchords

Original Review:

You are going to be sceptical about this - I know I was - but two unknown New Zealanders performing a modest spoof on folk music is one of the highlights of this year's Fringe.

That the audience for these undiscovered comedy heroes boasted more performers than the Late and Live bar speaks volumes about the quality of this delightfully funny show, whose word-of-mouth buzz is spreading fast. And rightly so.

The strength is in the beautifully underplayed performance of atmospheric music and killer dialogue, delivered in earnest deadpan.

It's a gloriously silly pastiche interspersed with devastatingly sardonic backchat - all treated entirely seriously, which only heightens the laughs.

Their songs, with titles such as Love Is Like Sellotape and Albee The Racist Dragon, combine deliberately clunky metaphors and beautifully warped logic to fantastic effect.

One favourite - though it's hard to choose a definitive from their subtly hilarious catalogue - is the self-censored rap based around the theme "There's too many mother-uckers -ucking with my shi-"

A French song they attempt is a little too Priorite A Gauche (although avec un certain extra je ne sais quois) and a couple of other numbers fall slightly short of the five comedy stars, though they are all musically wonderful.

These likeable guys dispel any notion that the musical spoof is a moribund comedy form with a real treat of a show. For all their modesty, they are sure to go far.

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