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That Pair
Cabaret XXL
Birmingham Rep
***
THAT PAIR are the comedy duo of Lorna Shaw and Kathryn Bond and their
current show is based loosely on the gender sterotyping of Disney with
Lorna appearing as the tiared princsess and Kathyryn
acting out several other less than glamorous roles. However
to use that as an overall description of their performance would be
misleading as none of their act really has a purpose or statement and it
follows the relationship format that French and Sunders used to have
with a straight woman and a comedy side kick. The show
is very much one long sketch and In essence the Pair take us through a
few personal observations about
being girls in the broad suggestion of them working or being part of the
children’s entertainer
world. The anecdotes are linked with a series of musical numbers. At times
they seemed a little nervouse and occasionally stumbled from link to
link or maybe that was part of their act
- it was hard to tell.
Some of the their songs however were clever and witty like
The Truth About Girls
and the newly penned 10 Mile Radius
which was a great observation on Internet dating. Others
though lacked the pre scene set up to fully grasp the reason for them
being in the show or their connection to the Disneyesque
characters they were playing. Shaw and
Bond did their best to get the audience going from the moment they
stepped out on to stage,
encouraging the audience to
stand,
sing along and dance with them.
This, though,
seemed like a mistake as no one was quite ready yet to engage with
them after
one minute of them arriving ,so
it was a little awkward. Later
they again attempted to get the audience to sing along a few rude lines
of a song and it seemed a tacky way of getting the audience
involved -
perhaps
it would be
more suited to the student
circuit. The past
few extreme acts featured at Caberet XXL are hard to follow,
often pulverising the audience into compliance
and presented with greater authority. As
That Pair’s
humour is more gooning than gritty it seemed the girls had a hard task
winning over the audience. The
pairing clearly have the ability to deliver and write some original
comedy but after a short 40 minutes the show was over without them
really making the impact they seem capable of. Jeff Grant 05-05-16 |
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