GOOSE NIGHTS
Pleasance, Edinburgh
August, 2001

*** Amiably silly, but something's still missing

Physical comedy company Peepolykus have grown in stature in the last few years, and this piece is typical of their work

I must admit that I am not one of this Anglo-Spanish trio's greatest fans.  They do what they do terribly well, but for me there doesn't seem to be quite enough to it. This show has a firmer storyline than many of their pieces – Zeus picks a waiter in a modern London-Greek restaurant to perform twelve tasks in order to prevent mankind from being destroyed – but the meat of the matter is still a series of absurd, clowning set-pieces.

Their strength is in the endless chain of deliberate mistakes they make, which they carry off with entirely straight faces. But basically, the show gambols along for just over an hour and then stops.  I couldn't help wanting more and bigger pay-offs, whether comic or dramatic, to the scenes as they progressed. It may be telling that the company cannot resist playing around even after the curtain-call, with the result that the audience never quite knows when the show has truly ended. They have undoubted strengths as performers, but have yet to marshal their material so that it packs a consistent, sizeable punch.

Written for divento.com

Copyright © Ian Shuttleworth; all rights reserved.

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