Four Poofs And A Piano at Chortle Fast Fringe

Clip from their 2009 Edinburgh Fringe Festival show at the Pleasance Courtyard 18:00

Four Poofs and a Piano: Smoke & Mirrorballs - Fringe 2009
Live Review

Even if you didn’t know the Four Poofs from their Jonathan Ross residency; their name, their show title and a poster in which the quartet of aging theatrical queens pose in nothing but unflattering sporrans gives a fair indication of the type of entertainment they are offering. Camp as Catholicism… on ice.

Were it not for my job, it’s the type of show I would normally go to great lengths to avoid. Could they win me over? Erm, not really…

This is where Edinburgh’s conventional five-star rating system breaks down. Based on my enjoyment of the show, it would scrape a two; but on filling the expectations of the target audience, it’s an easy four. So let’s split the difference.

No that expectations of the audience seemed particularly high. Sparkly things seem to hold their attention – and there’s no lack of them on display here: from the glittery lights that adorn the piano to the spangly hotpants the gang wear at one point.

The audience whoop in delight at the promise of ‘for fruity flavours for the price of one’, coo an impressed ‘ooh’ when the boys reveal they have a CD out, and think there’s nothing funnier than a man dressed as a nun. When, as vicars, they sing the picture-postcard line: ‘When she catches sight of my organ…’ they collapse in hilarity.

More predictable material comes with the song about men not being able to find the clitoris, or the banter about inbreeding in Norfolk. As jokes go, this is definitely low-hanging fruit, and there’s another double-entendre in there somewhere, too.

They are likeable as performers, though, despite the too-clearly scripted banter between them. They revel in their unfashionable cheesiness, celebrating the campness of this unpretentious mainstream entertainment.

In fact, for some of he show they abandon the first part of the comedy-cabaret hyphenate altogether and offer up a potted variety show to ride the Britain’s Got Talent popularity wave: in turn disco dancing in gold lame shorts, proving a surprisingly good breakdancer and applying a nimble wrist to a marching band-style drum. This last turn was actually rather sweet, harking back to a simpler time of music-hall turns.

Their Slumdog Millionaire-inspired Bollywood takes on a couple of nightclub floor-fillers raised a smile, too, and their song Do You was elevated above the pack, by ditching cheap innuendo and contrasting the direct message with the innocent melody.

For me, though, it wasn’t enough. But then I’m not their demographic: for a girls’ night out it’s the prefect excuse to clap and sing along to the hits and shriek at the double-meanings in.. well, what? Delight? Offence? Probably both.