Former Cambridge Footlighters The Pin show promise but need work if they are to measure up to some of the more established sketch acts at the Fringe, says Emma McAlpine.
The Pin are much improved since their London work-in-progress show I caught in January. The irritating corpsing is gone and they’ve tied their sketches together in a slick nonlinear narrative. It may be gimmicky but it adds a structure and finesse to the content, which is unfortunately lacking.
The narrative loosely revolves around the arrest and escape of a criminal called McGann, sweeping backwards and forwards in time, with sketches followed by a prequel sketch and lots of other mini story threads tying into the main one. The trio: Mark Fiddaman, Alex Owen and Ben Ashenden, are former Cambridge Footlighters and are clearly practiced in the physicality of a good sketch show: the action is clean and fast-paced and they’ve all got a reliable sense of comic timing.
The main problem is the content. They rely far too heavily on misdirection; all too often the butt of the joke isn’t who you thought it would be. There’s only so often the 'hey we fooled you!' routine can be used before it loses its humour. At other times you’re acutely aware you’re watching a post-grad comedy show: there’s a crude spoof of a Virgin advert, a few knob gags and a couple of sketches with characters getting ‘bummed’, which feels like a cheap way to milk some laughs out of the student-dominated crowd.
The group aren’t without promise: there’s a well-observed parody of a patronising Wagamama waiter scribbling nonsense orders on customers’ tablemats, an inventive and surreal ‘suit of bees’ sketch and a brilliant scene with a camp Italian waiter which carefully builds up hysteria in the audience. Frustratingly though, a lot of these sketches have good ideas in them, then fail to follow through with a decent punchline.
To be fair, I am in the minority here. Most of the audience are lapping it up and for a first show it’s an auspicious start. They are however, going to need more development before they measure up to some of the more established sketch acts at the Fringe. 
The Pin are at the Pleasance Courtyard at 4:45pm until the 27th August.
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