Mabbs & Justice: Love Machine
Live Review

Often as a reviewer you find yourself at odds with an audience – hating some easy fodder that’s getting lots of laughs, or loving something that deserves more. No such problem with Mabbs & Justice as, for the full hour, as the entire audience sat in stunned silence at the complete absence of comedy. Not a single laugh was generated among a room that was simply embarrassed on their behalf, greeting jokes with head-shakes, or at best, a limply amused exhalation of breath. I’m sure the duo must, by this stage in the festival, be acutely aware that they’ve a real turkey on their hands.

The premise is that the show is a lonely-hearts seminar, offering advice on dating. In such romantic encounters we’re said to make our mind up almost instantly – and the same is true here. After the first three minutes, you know the next 57 are going to be very long indeed.

The pair are dreadful performers. Their dialogue is stilted, the acting wooden and most of their characters prance around the stage as if they are on a kids’ TV series. It has the strange effect of being both overacted and half-arsed at the same time. James Mabbett is the most annoying of the pair: he appears to be under the delusion that he’s some sort of latter-day Rik Mayall, but he’s missing just one key factor: talent.

His first character is Jeff Aylesbottom, our supposed expert on matters of the heart who turns out to be a reedy, nasal chap like a supercharged Charlie Hawtry. Hands up who guessed he’d turn out to be inept, money-grasping charlatan who’s useless with women himself… oh, everybody. He’s introduced with a list of books he’s written, with titles like ‘Maintain Your Bush’. And guess what, it’s about gardening! This is actually as good as the humour gets.

In another sketch the pair have the temerity to mock bad actors, then there’s a screeching American woman with cutesy teddy-bear jumper who wants to turn Professor Brian Cox into a cow. Really, don’t ask. That sub-surreal idea is drawn out over four or five painful minutes. The another expert who’s dating technique is stalking. It’s a bit old hat, but the pair have given it their own twist… by removing any trace of comic sensibility from it.

This is desperate, desperate stuff from start to finish. Please don’t be taken in by the four-star review from Radio 1 they have plastered over their posters – I’m sure the fact that Adam Justice used to work on the station is merely a coincidence given the BBC’s famous impartiality – because these two really don’t have a GSOH.