Driscoll and Message

Note: This review is from 2001

Review by Steve Bennett

It's apt that the posters for this insipid show depict possibly Britain's only male-female double act going down on each other - for this painful laugh-free rubbish sure does suck.

Driscoll and Message provide an uncomfortably bizarre mix of vile misogynistic sketches - which are presumably meant to be dark, but are actually just downright nasty - with the sort of pathetic revue-style characters that no doubt prove a real hoot at the Human Resources Christmas party, but are frankly unwelcome elsewhere.

As a rule of thumb, any show that features a man wearing a feather boa as part of a desperate bid for laughs needs to be given a very wide berth, and this sad attempt is no exception.

This is Steve Message, who plays a transsexual chat show host alongside Julie Driscoll's heroin-addicted former 80s pop sensation Kylie.

They introduce a number of dismal, if well-performed, characters - the Ku Klux Klansman, the savage ex-con and the predictable girl/boy band spoof - in a series of unfunny sketches that all too often have the brutal bullying of the woman at their heart.

Driscoll and Message seem at once over-keen to please and over-keen to offend - it's an unsettling and unpleasant combination that is really best avoided..

Review date: 1 Jan 2001
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett

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