Domestic Goddi Review 2008

Domestic Goddi, the new sketch show from erstwhile 'Pick of the Fringe' Rosie Wilkinson and BBC award winner Helen O'Brien, is the comedy equivalent of the buffet at a particularly booze-heavy party – it's easy, light and sometimes extremely tasty, but leaves you craving something a little bit more substantial.

Made up of a series of “snapshots into the real lives of women” interwoven with some hilarious snippets from a fictional Barnsley radio station, the string that ties the whole confection together is the two performers' obvious distaste for the very notion of the 'Domestic Goddess'.

So we see a couple of teenage girls waiting to meet an older man that they've met online, a middle aged woman having a hair-razing encounter with an eastern European beautician, and a bride-to-be who is prepared to sacrifice anything to have the perfect wedding – even the groom.

Many of these sketches are laugh-out-loud funny, others gently amusing, and some just plain odd. One in particular, about a crazed Michael Flatley creating an army of riverdancing minions, seems several years past its sell-by date. But for the most part they all share a certain safe predictability that is especially frustrating since Wilkinson and O'Brien are clearly both extremely capable and versatile performers.

Billed as the world's first “anti-ageing, anti-wrinkle, anti-establishment sketch show,” Domestic Goddi is a lot of fun, and might take years off your life, but unfortunately it's about as anti-establishment as a prawn cocktail.