Foil, Arms and Hog: Comedy Doesn’t Pay
Live Review

This is the third year that the Irish sketch trio Foil, Arms and Hog have been at the Edinburgh Fringe, yet they’ve barely made an impact. This effort is unlikely to break that duck – for while there is certainly a lot worse on offer elsewhere in the city, there’s also little to make this a must-see.

Also, repeating sketches from last year is unlikely to win them kudos. The best rerun is based around the system noises of Microsoft Windows – while the revived scene with a series of mobile apps, including the ‘period detector’ (for women rather than historical eras) is painfully contrived.

Conor McKenna and Seans Finegan and Flanagan perform with force and vigour, though that sometimes crosses into less appealing noise and shouting. The writing is equally patchy – mocking phone-sex adverts or the flamboyant showmanship of a cruise-ship style magician is very old hat, but their apparently clichéd interrogation scene manages to spin off into silly new directions, thanks to the inventive use of a fake moustache.

It’s never particularly highbrow, but it can be reasonably funny, with the odd twist to add zing. A key sketch about competitive sandcastle-building has a particularly nice premise, and an even nicer payoff, though they spend a lot of time reinforcing the core joke without adding much to it, suggesting some judicious editing would be in order. And strangely, they are not the only Irish comedy group to have a rap about firemen – as Dead Cat Bounce share that honour.

There’s no overall theme here. Indeed, their gimmick is to have a cymbal on stage that they crash to signify the end of a scene – a sort of ‘get-out-of-sketch free’ equivalent to the traditional blackout, but one that blind people can also enjoy. Actually, they don’t really need it as they do actually know how to end a scene, which is a rare talent.

Foil, Arms and Hog seem to have all the tools to craft something great, but this is merely fine, not the breakthrough they must be hoping for.