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Festive, silly and funny, Brazen Hodgepodge is a cleverly written quick-fire live sketch show worth a visit this December.Summary
Rating
Good
A pub full of rosy-faced workers after their Christmas parties is a lovely thing. I quite enjoy having my wits about me and hearing the slurs and seeing the tired-but-having-fun eyes. Tonight, my faculties were all with me as I pushed past Christmas jumpers and got a few accidental splashes of wine thrown at me because I was making my way to see Brazen Hodgepodgeat Canal Café Theatre – above The Bridge House pub in Little Venice.
Brazen Hodgepodge is a live comedy sketch show: an impressive amount of skits fit into an hour, and this particular hodgepodge makes use of every moment. I began by counting the number of sketches that I saw (everyone loves a statistic) but, to their credit, I was enjoying them so much I lost count. The show is chock full of punchlines, slapstick, clever jokes, dad jokes, and general silliness. In fact, if I had to pick one word to describe Brazen Hodgepodge it would have to be silly.
Four young actors (Sam Gibbons, Dan Thorn, Emily Duncanson and Orla Ridpath) perform the sketches, sometimes solo, sometimes as ensemble. Each skit has its own particular flavour which is quite clear in the writing (which was done by all four of the cast, with additional writers John Upton, Laurence Dean, Cerys Evans and Eden Tredwell), but the delivery does vary in quality at times.
I’d struggle to pinpoint specific weaker aspects, but the strengths of the show are so great that perhaps it is a case of just needing more of the good stuff. To name a couple of the great things, the ‘audio only’ skits are witty and cleverly written, and the simplicity and innocence of the humour is lovely. Ridpath’s performance is a real highlight – I couldn’t take my eyes off her expressiveness when she was on stage, sometimes missing the place my attention was meant to be. Perhaps I do wonder, though, if some political commentary doesn’t deserve the silliness treatment – for example, ex-PM Boris Johnson’s particular brand of oafishness might give some chuckles but to me it softens the catastrophic reality of his impact.
‘Tis the season, of course, and Brazen Hodgepodge make good use of this. Elves aplenty, we see everything Christmassy from Father Christmas’ social media manager to the Just Stop Santa movement (Lapland’s answer to Just Stop Oil). It made me think about some of what makes sketch shows I know truly memorable, and I wonder if something that Brazen Hodgepodge is missing is just one tiny bit of continuity – a recurring character, reference or joke. But for an enjoyable evening of festive silliness, you could do a whole lot worse than having fun with the foursome at Brazen Hodgepodge.
Written by: Sam Gibbons, Dan Thorn, Emily Duncanson, Orla Ridpath, John Upton, Laurence Dean, Cerys Evans and Eden Tredwell
Directed by: Sam Gibbons
Produced by: Pam Gibbons
Brazen Hodgepodge plays at Canal Café Theatre until 17 December. Further information about the company can be found here.
