The publicity image seems to have put a lot of people off: the head-shot of a frantically mugging Cobb suggests a particularly American strain of enforced wackiness. The reality is much subtler.
Cobb (Tim Kane) is a middle-manager who claims to have discovered the secret of maintaining serenity in the face of the rough and tumble of modern urban life. Naturally, he is anything but a success, and his growing frustration as exercises go awry and he fields repeated calls from his boss make for a comedy of incompetence which builds gradually rather than throwing all its cards on the table at once. He is aided and generally rescued throughout the hour by his supposedly dim, man-hungry assistant Moose (Zoë Bywater), who is deliciously adept at flinging herself around the stage and insinuating her way around audience members with apparent abandon. Both are fine comedians, and the use of video footage (which seems increasingly obligatory) is given a twist when Moose seems to step easily from the stage on to the screen. Altogether a very pleasant surprise.
Written for the Financial Times Web site, ft.com
Copyright © Ian Shuttleworth; all rights reserved.
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