Rayguns Look Real Enough: Balls Deep
Live Review

More pub rockers than comedians, Rayguns Look Real Enough serve up a barnstorming selection of top-grade musical mash-ups, interspersed with unspectacular jokes and mediocre banter.

If you need a plot, it’s that Ray Guns (Ryan Beange) and Luke Real (Paul Flannery) are the last remaining members of one of Britain’s biggest stadium-rock bands, now down on their luck, dropped by their record label and forced to play a converted car-park in front of fewer than 50 people.

They still have the spirit of glam rock, though, with Guns spending the hour in a shiny tiger suit – fetchingly designed to reveal his sizeable naked belly – and similarly-themed hat. He thinks he’s feline – albeit a lactose-intolerant feline – while dominant Real tries to puncture his dream with an unwelcome dose of reality.

And that’s about it for their relationship or characterisation. There are a few perfunctory gags here, but the biggest laugh comes from an exchange pretty much nicked from The Beatles: ‘I’m the greatest rapper in the world!’, ‘You’re not even the greatest rapper in this room...’ This precedes a rap battle interlude featuring guest comics – tonight Luke Benson and Kai Humphries – which won’t be giving Jay-Z any sleepless nights.

Still, the banter’s not the selling point, the music is – and for two blokes, one guitar and a tambourine they make a pretty decent noise, although sometimes the lyrics are indistinct, which could be down to them or the acoustics. The way they smash brief refrains together from a diverse range of originals is impressive, too. Black Box segueing to Lady Gaga, to The Kings Of Leon to Cornershop is just one example of a run of covers they can pack together space of a few bars.

It makes for a lively party atmosphere – or as much as can be expected with these audience numbers – and the pair certainly strut around as if they were at Wembley, helping to infuse the atmosphere with energy. It’s great, if unsophisticated fun… just gloss over the comedy.