Review by Steve Bennett

Cross a Goon Show script with Marx Brothers dialogue, and you get Peepolykus.

At their best, this talented trio combine anarchic slapstick, witty fast-talking backchat and silly visual gags for a relentless assault on the senses.

You really do have to be alert to catch everything. The big, overblown gestures are complemented by subtle nuances, and the sheer pace of the verbal trickery demands you keep up.

Which is exactly why they shouldn't be occupying so late a timeslot. They finish just before1am, and audiences are not at their most responsive for clever, crafted comedy at that time of night.

Like the Goon Show, the plot for Let The Donkey Go is slight, existing only as something to deviate from. It's some cockamamie story about the forces of the cod Mediterranean country Rajmanistan chasing a suspected suspect across land and sea.

Over this loose framework a series of stupid sketches is casually draped - a frenzied biscuit-smashing polka, an all-singing,all-dancing puppet version of Old McDonald Had A Farm and a gloriously twisted torture scene.

It's riddled with subversion, wit and off-the-wall ideas, all pulled off with skill and panache.

Yet somehow the whole is less than the sum of its parts. Despite the wild and whacky mayhem, the flimsy narrative just isn't enough to maintain interest, and the show outstayed its welcome by about 20 minutes.

Review date: 1 Jan 2003
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett