Sheeps @ Pleasance Courtyard
The Giggle Bunch is a distinctive, meta return to the Fringe for cult sketch comedy group Sheeps
The Giggle Bunch is Sheeps’ first new show in six years, and their cult status means it's been eagerly anticipated. There's an intriguing sensibility at work in their off-beat sketches and little slices of skewed worlds, but for the uninitiated, the show is potentially a puzzling experience.
The sketches confound any consistent pattern; a scene is established, there's a resolution or punchline of sorts, then it refocuses and then refocuses again. One kind of logic falls out of a scene, to be replaced by another. Or maybe the focus seems to be on one thing, before suddenly shifting to something else – a kind of misdirection which is used to great effect in the gag about the classic three-chord 'dun dun duuun'. The trio relish a kind of faux or deliberately scrappy resolution (the sleeping fathers and the too-big toilets; Santa in the Pentagon), and scenes are summoned and then crashed into – such as a Guys and Dolls scenario overrun by a bloke from Leeds who names dogs. There's really only one sketch where the reveal is straightforward, and it feels curiously disappointing.
The material is consistently intriguing, but the performances sometimes feel sloppy – bad accents, fluffed lines – and while this might be intentional and even actively part of the joke, it's still confusing. The headset mics are part of the problem; off-putting and distancing, they work against any sense of the rough edges as deliberate.
There's definitely something happening here, but what it is isn't exactly clear. Oddball and meta, Sheeps are doing something really distinctive, but it's an acquired taste.
Sheeps: The Giggle Bunch (That's Our Name For You), Pleasance Courtyard (Pleasance Two), until 25 Aug, 8pm, £11-£18; extra shows at Pleasance Courtyard (Pleasance One), 19 Aug, 4.30pm and 20 Aug, 10.40pm