Inside Alan Francis and Barnaby Power

This is a dark and filthy sketch show, where the comic classics of sex and swearing are given sharp and bitter twists through a host of foul-mouthed and foul-minded characters, in scenarios ranging from a confrontation in a betting shop to a struggling polar expedition.

Francis metamorphoses from a rough Cockney who briefly finds inner peace through Buddhism into a female clairvoyant more interested in feeling up a client than communing with the dead. Power, meanwhile, is calmly propositioned for a threesome in a Surrey golf club, and finds himself on the menu when supplies run low in the Arctic. The best routine sees two men in a south London pub seriously fantasising about a gay relationship in order to avoid the kissing and cuddling demanded from their wives after sex.

Francis and Power work well together and are clearly seasoned performers. Yet most of these sketches—or ‘playlets’ as Power calls them—descend into cliché and expletives, while the biting humour only highlights a lack of original material and characters. A singer who comes on stage to scatter swear words through the songs of Frank Sinatra doesn’t get many laughs the first time, let alone the next two attempts.

Overall the black humour simply does not satisfy, and for all the cruder elements of the show, it's the simple lack of energy and originality that leaves an unpleasant aftertaste.