Cardinal Burns @ Pleasance Courtyard

It feels deliciously sinister mocking a few of the British, Irish, and French stereotypes many love to hate. But – oh-so-good. The infectious chemistry of Seb Cardinal and Dustin Demri-Burns takes a tour through various accents and regional romps.

It’s a high-energy hour of sketches, impressions, and comedy songs. The Cardinal Burns show mainly seems to be performing for a healthy portion of Londoners in the audience, and the pre-existing fans of their popular TV sketch comedy show. They don’t disappoint with a top hit, the London-Turkish taxi drivers, Hashtag and Bukkake. During this sketch they get up in the crowd, peppering in jokes about highly specific London neighbourhoods and London taxi humour. At one point they ask an audience member where she lives, and she replies with a London borough, and the audience positively roared with laughter. But the tone and some of the jokes are broad enough to offer an in for the uninitiated. Although the comedy is heavy on the in-jokes, as long as you hold some of the implied knowledge to be in on the regional jokes, there is good fun to be had.

A particular highlight is their spot-on caricature of a made up French sketch show Tap, Tap, Tap! – with the strength of their dynamic and detailed physical comedy and tone, they manage to have the audience hysterical with laughter without speaking a word of English. They attend to the different regional characters with such intense detail you’ll be doing double takes all through the show to make sure it’s the same two people. It's the masterful way they flick their scarves and point their toes as two French comics, or gesture wildly as two brusque Scots. It’s a show of colloquial humour mainly, and they’ll have you laughing not at other places, but in recognition of home.