Original Review:

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Review

These girls were something of a surprise discovery of last year's Fringe with the sketch show 13 O'Clock, which was inventive, manic, playful and brilliant. This year's offering, in a much bigger venue, differs in just about every way.

Somewhere over the year, Trippplicate seem to have lost the plot. This time around, we're presented with an ill-conceived mess with surrealism replacing wit and any imagination, narrative or intelligence completely exorcised. It's as if they've watched Boosh and thought 'that's easy, we can do that', and only served to proved just how difficult it is.

It's only the energy and physicality of performers Katie Lyons and Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and a couple of appealing visual gags that keeps it from being utterly unwatchable, and even then it's a close call.

The premise is that they're a couple of receptionists who must save their building from being destroyed by some internal terrorist threat. Is it Sir Alan, the midget chairman; his brusque PA with an indeterminate East European accent; or thestrange prophet with a penchant for cheese and onion crisps?

Their office building is like some multi-storey Narnia, each floor transporting them into the Battle of Trafalgar, or shark-infested seas or a spaceship captained by Cher ­ all of which are achieved by a shoddily drawn overhead projector transparency. Though, to be honest, mostly they stay in an office.

We never care what happens, the characters are overly zany, without saying or doing anything especially funny, and the script feels carelessly slapped together. When, in an hour, your best line comes from the dusted-down Essex girl gag that someone was 'staring at a carton of orange juice because it said concentrate', you've got to worry about the writing.

They must do so much better - and last year's show proved they can.

Steve Bennett