Review by Steve Bennett

Shirley & Shirley are charismatic performers, wasting their abilities on some of the most predictable and flat material on the Fringe.

We know a lot of kids speak like wannabe rappers, and no one’s managed to really add anything new to that easy observation since Ali G came a dozen or so years ago. Dya get me?

This opening sketch is endemic of the writing that just doesn’t go anywhere. It’s a assumed that just accent is enough to get a laugh. That’s lazy enough when it’s a daffy West Country bumpkin in her bobble-hat, slightly dodgier when it’s two white girls mimicking a headdress-wearing Nigerian, sucking on her teeth. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t play black characters – it’s just that the gag really ought to be more that ‘let’s laugh at their funny voices’ to justify it.

There’s an X-Factor spoof, a Jane Austen parody, and three sketches where the pair end up virtually dry-humping each other, which has to point to an inability to find a better punchlines. The audio sketches that cover costume changes are too long, too, leaving the audience sitting gazing at a blackened stage for way too long.

It’s all very well performed, however. The characters may be stereotypes, but Shirley & Shirley – real names Joanna Carolan and Pascale Wilson – make them just about believable. An atypical absurdist sketch, in which they play ballerinas producing food out of nowhere, shows a knack for physical comedy, while they can certainly sing and dance, too, and they get the chance to show that off here. Anyone would think this was an acting showreel …

Their singing is best used in their imagining of the Bollywood version of Mamma Mia – as if the original film wasn’t pretty much a Westernised version of the Indian films anyway. Another promising idea, but reduced to the tedious lyric swaps: Chiquitita becomes chicken tikka and so, predictably, on.

The telegenic duo are likely to go on to better things from this – but not on the strength of their writing. The strikingly tall Wilson can switch effortlessly between aloof elegance and undignified grotesque, while Carolan can make even the blandest caricature charmingly endearing. Expect to see them both popping up as supporting actors in Britcoms.

Review date: 23 Aug 2009
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett