Sheeps

Sheeps: A Sketch Show, Pleasance Courtyard Hut, 11:00pm and 4:45pm

Many critics have noted, and possibly over-intellectualised, the decision taken by certain members of certain sketch groups (including all three Penny Dreadfuls and the bearded one from Pappy’s) to do their own solo shows at Edinburgh this year. Whatever their reasons, the creative spring-clean comes not a moment too soon for some: last year’s Penny Dreadfuls show, in an enormous venue full of guffawing disciples, was a dull, complacent mess. More excitingly, if it means that the wiser and purer likes of Sheeps have more room in the sketch field to flourish, this can only be a very good thing.

There are three Sheeps and they are all former Cambridge Footlights. Alastair Roberts is angular, stern, birdlike, and often the Peter Cook alpha tone-setter. The sketch where he is unable to play the straight man to a wigged, mincing, lisping mad professor (a rare genuinely funny sketch-within-a-sketch) is probably rooted in some sort of rehearsal truth. Daran Johnson is the cheery, boyish, flexible fall-guy and the emotional compass (he corpsed in at least two sketches, which I rather liked). But Liam Williams is the most impressive. He is a terrifyingly good performer: haggard, quiet-eyed and blessed with the soft intensity of a character actor (someone like Gabriel Byrne or Jonathan Pryce), his movement and delivery shimmer with class and certainty, even in the most throwaway lines. About thirty seconds in, he says, “Hello, mate” to Johnson in such an unusual, sweet, patient way that it was probably my favourite moment of the show.

The writing is tremendous. The only sketch that shows at the seams, one that belongs to a far less imaginative student troupe (or Harry and Paul), is the interview with the footballer whose every answer includes ‘at the end of the day’. But the rest are fluent, original, varied, and crammed with subtle delights. They also come very quickly: the three run between sketches like Twenty20 cricketers running between overs. They frame the show neatly too, beginning with a selection of ‘deleted scenes’ (which included a worryingly convincing medley of cod-Oliver! songs) and finishing with a brilliantly blocked ‘highlights reel’.

This is the very best kind of sketch comedy: wry, effervescent, rich, self-aware, impeccably performed and oddly moving. Please go and see it.