Moon @ Pleasance Courtyard

Upstart sketch group Moon delight with an onslaught of quickfire jokes

Review by Charlie Ralph | 19 Aug 2019
  • Moon: We Cannot Get Out @ Pleasance Courtyard

Dark comedy is all the rage on the sketch circuit at the moment, particularly since Gein's Family Giftshop became one of the most recent sketch acts to launch their career through the Fringe. It's increasingly common for sketches to be punctuated with a gunshot or a scream rather than a punchline, which is unfortunate as some groups work best when steering away from the dark side. One such group is Moon, a double-act whose jokes are consistently strong enough to fly on their own, without edge.

Moon are Jack Chisnall and Joshua Dolphin, two young comedians gifted with extraordinary comic talent and a canny ability to make even the most perfunctory of establishing sentences hilarious. Refusing to fall into the familiar trap of high status/low status, instead taking turns to control the room, Chisnall and Dolphin both prove to be brilliant physical and vocal comedians throughout the hour.

The quality of their jokes matches their talent and punchlines hit hard and fast, particularly in the first half of the show. There may not be a better first twenty minutes on the Fringe than can be found in We Cannot Get Out, and they largely maintain the momentum throughout (except the disappointing ending). Any bad notes hit, of which there are few, come from the group’s attempts to build a ‘dark’ persona, when they would be better off focusing on the speed and skill of their material. A prime example of this is their sketch humanising a game of Monopoly – it burns through quality jokes at breakneck speed until suddenly landing on tastelessness as a final punchline.

Still, this is a promising second hour from the duo, and one we should be taking notes from for future Fringes.


Moon: We Cannot Get OutPleasance Courtyard (Below), until 25 Aug, 9.30pm, £7.50-£10.50