"Too many misses and not enough hits." Emma McAlpine reviews new sketch foursome KWAT.
I have an ominous feeling about KWAT after their opening gag: “Hands up who’s had a few drinks tonight? The emergency toilets are to the right.” Wa-hay! But I’m pleasantly surprised with their first few sketches, a fresh twist on the telesales cold call – a very unromantic ‘non-binding’ marriage proposal – and a funny take on a male bikini wax in all its excruciatingly awkward detail.
KWAT’s strength (it really is hard to follow that name with a serious comment) is their range of ideas, each one as refreshingly different as the next. There’s a squirrel spoof of an al-Qaeda hostage video with the reds kidnapping the greys, a politician answering a reporter’s questions with the lyrics to the Shoop Shoop song, some WW2-era women saying goodbye to a string of soldier sweethearts with increasingly ludicrous accents, and an angry telephone call from various human organs to a brain on having to process the previous night’s excesses.
Not all of the sketches have an entirely original feel but most have an unexpected angle at least and some take you by surprise completely. The main issue is that a lot of them don’t reach their full potential (the callback squirrel routine being one of them). The ideas are there but the dialogue isn’t strong enough. This new quartet are enthusiastic, engaging performers and there’s an encouraging scope of imagination on display here. There are just too many misses and not enough hits for this show to impress.
KWAT: Greetings from KWAT are at Just the Tonic at the Caves at 10:15pm until 26th August.
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