Sheeps - Festive Bash at The Invisible Dot

Sheeps - Festive Bash at The Invisible Dot

19 December, 2011
by: Stevie

Combining fierce intelligence with utter silliness, it's Sheeps. Stevie Martin thinks they're pretty special.

When everyone goes on about how good something is, it can often tun out to be a bit of a let-down. At this year's Edinburgh Festival everyone was banging on about Sheeps – the sketch trio made up of ex Cambridge Footlighters Alastair Roberts, Liam Williams and Daran Johnson (referred to as Johnno) – but thankfully, on the evidence of tonight's ironically bad festive party at the Invisible Dot, they more than live up to the hype.

Credit must first go though to the diversity and strength of the different acts. Kieran and The Joes (Kieran Hodgson, Joe Markham and Joe Parham) never fail to boost energy levels with their club set – a series of motivational activities aiming to encourage teamwork through forcing birthday celebrations on an unsuspecting audience member. The massively bearded Target delivers  new material with aplomb, inviting the audience to throw shoes at his head. His ability to undercut himself, neatly subverting his own punchlines give his ridiculous material an intelligent edge. It's material that could easily bomb if handled in the wrong way, but thankfully he's more than capable. He also has, to put it frankly, balls. Being attacked by footwear takes balls.

After some more festive bantering from Sheeps involving a round of "Sneaky Santa", similar (ie identical) to Secret Santa, Leeds-based sketch group Oyster Eyes produce a performance strong enough to overcome the various tech blips. Doing old material, while slipping in Christmas-related words wherever possible, their skits range from the strong to the under-developed. An advertisement for hair weaves is impressive, while an African religious motivator falls short – despite their solid delivery.

During the interval, hot wine is served alongside a large bowl of egg mixture that nobody touches, before Nick Mohammed kicks off the second half. He brings back old favourite Mr Swallow, an incredulous northerner, for a well observed tirade aimed at the apparently flawed Christmas carol 'Twelve Days of Christmas'. We've all met a Mr Swallow, and it's this familiarity, coupled with acute observation, that makes for a brilliant lambasting of partridges in pear trees. Second is a new character based on Nick's own landlady and, though a marked change in tone, the sweet, quiet and gameshow-obsessed Sophie is a wonderful creation. Because she isn't a creation. She contains elements of every middle-aged woman in the UK and showcases the core of Mohammed's brilliance: that he can convincingly become a middle aged woman.

Finally, it's time for Sheeps to command the stage with a selection of new sketches that straddle fierce intelligence and utter silliness. When a skit works – a standout being Johnno's ascension through Hollywood – it is nothing short of sublime. They're shambolic yet utterly in control – even the weaker sketches are immensely enjoyable and extremely funny, with no real misfires. Their style is casual, conversational and littered with brilliant turns of phrase delivered with an offhand this-could-all-fall-apart-at-any-moment looseness. They've also hit on a balance between characters and caricature; Alastair as the tall, geeky, serious one. Johnno as the naive, sweetly ignorant one. Liam as the cool one. However, Alastair is also irreverent and likeable. Johnno is subtle and intelligent. In one sketch, the other two forget who Liam is. Yes, sometimes it strays into the ridiculous, and sketches occasionally end with one of the group apologetically announcing "well, that's the end of that sketch, really" but this doesn't undermine what is essentially a group of three horribly talented people putting many of their fellow sketch groups to shame.

Overall, a great line-up of festive jestering overseen by a trio you'll no doubt hear plenty of in the near future. If you get the chance to see Sheeps, buy a ticket. Without wanting to go overboard, it's something quite special.

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Stevie