Original Review:

Show Rating:

With one Radio 4 series transmitted and another planned, the four Bearded Ladies' Fringe show was a great disappointment.

It was well directed, well acted, well crafted, totally professional ­ but rarely funny. The sketches were basically radio scripts visualised for the live stage.

However, they were as cold and clinical as ice in a morgue.

Well-paced, fast-moving, yes. But the show can be epitomised by a sketch in which three executives in a communications company have to sack a colleague because she only speaks in Chaucerian English. It is very clever, beautifully acted, but has no real point, no punchline. It is a one-line idea.

All four of the performers have extensive writing credits on radio and TV and have future shows signed and sealed. I can only assume they are saving their better material for better-paid gigs. Or they were having an off-night. There were eight walkouts during the show and the faces of those who stayed and left at the end were as glum as mine.