Edinburgh Fringe 2013

These fresh faced young lads pull an equally young and enthusiastic audience, about half of whom have already seen them and join in heartily, and the other half catch on quick.  They may be young, but this musical comedy double act are by no means short on stage craft and flying hours, and have put together a cannily structured show that only the most miserable curmudgeon would fail to warm to.  

 

I am old enough to be this act and crowds Dad, so most will be blissfully unaware of Supergirly, a similar all female act who rose to fame in the late nineties with Lenny Beige and co doing  covers with new words of the likes of Madonna and Robbie Williams.   The BBC bought their contract for £2million, then realised buying copyright for the songs would be prohibitive, and thus Supergirly disappeared into obscurity.

 

I get a feeling this won’t happen to Jollyboat; they have medleys of well known tunes with their own (often very funny) lyrical content, such as their opening pirate themed number, but they also have original numbers and pastiches, such as their hilarious Craig David micky take “What the Hell Happened to Wedneday?!”, “Women in Comedy” and “The Perfect X Factor Song” and plenty of banter and material of their own. 

 

“Youth is forgiven everything, age is forgiven nothing” as the saying goes, and as such, I forgave them their Disney musical puppetshow take on the Star Wars films, despite it being very close to the kind of thing Adam and Joe used to do, mainly because it’s funny enough to be got away with, especially when done with the shambolic charm these two have.   It should be mentioned that they are brothers, and not, as they say “a gay couple…because that would really upset our sister”.    

 

Talking of filth, if you think this all sounds a bit wholesome and CBBC, they do have their fair share of x rated material.  The Disney Princesses song is  a delightful shocker, as is the Pirate Rap.  But there is also a neat line in achingly awful computer keyboard based puns in a couple of songs.  Sounds dreadful, works very neatly.  These boys are clever, know their audience, and have charisma and likeability in, well, boatloads.  I predict this ship will sail on the comedy high seas for some time.