Sketch Show Bingo! | Get Your Coats On

“Delivered with confidence by three performers whose grip on their material is tighter than a skinflint clutching a fiver in a tornado.”

Quirks & Foibles – Katie Bennett, Amy McCann and Amelia Stephenson – are ones to watch, which is good cos they’re in a show. It’s called ‘Sketch Show Bingo!’ and it does what it says on the tin and does so really rather well. On entering, we are handed a bingo card and a dabber (mine’s run out of ink, which is fine because I get less than half). One of the trio rolls the cage, out comes a sketch and off we go. First to get a horizontal line, first to get a full house. Simples.

It’s 50 minutes worth of short, snappy, smart ideas delivered with confidence by three performers whose grip on their material is tighter than a skinflint clutching a fiver in a tornado. If you saw Quirks & Foibles’ entry for last year’s Eurovision, then you’ll get their style. Big contrasting personalities paired with big shared commitment. That material is always on target, even if there isn’t a slam-dunk goal every time. It’s the Fry and Laurie, Mitchell and Webb sketch snob in me. I like to feel that a good half shelf of background academic research has gone into an idea. There needs to be depth to even the shallowest of silly ideas. Still, there is so much promise here.

The Bingo! concept really works. It gets the audience involved and interested from the start. The trio’s delivery is lithe and lively, spontaneous but pacy. The banter between Bennett, McCann, and Stephenson is what makes this show properly stand out, and I would like to see much, much more such Rat Packery between the numbers. This is a solid group yet to find their Brian Epstein, someone who (or something that) can focus all the energy and all the talent into a more consistent, playful whole. There’s a hesitancy, but I am hesitant to say exactly how it manifests except that it does.

Come to see smart, funny people being smart and funny. Stay for a format that’s unlocking this trio’s obvious talent and potential. Get your green stripy double-breasted blazers on and go see this!