Dance Monkey Boy Dance

Published Wednesday 18 August 2004 at 13:10 by Gerald Berkowitz

This quintet of Glaswegian comics build about half of their act on improvisation - much of it of the Whose Line Is It sort - in which one or two of them are challenged to cope with an audience-suggested situation or limitation. So we get the party, whose host has to guess who his guests are, the scene that has to be played in ever-changing styles, the scene to be played entirely in song. Add to these other staples of the genre, generally pulled off with the success of a cast who have heard many of these suggestions before and who have worked together and can pick up each other’s cues.

Scripted material includes a brief solo spot for each, with the stuntman proud of his only slightly dangerous tricks and the double-speed keyboard version of Bohemian Rhapsody working better than an overlystretched imitation of Billy Connolly doing Ronnie Corbett’s sit-down act. Several videotaped sequences prove less successful - not least because the combination of Glaswegian accents and a dodgy sound system renders them nearly unintelligible - but a parody of Christopher Walken’s appearance in a music video is telling.