Jollie: Abreast of Culture

What do you do if you land a plum commission to represent Great Britain in a song and story festival celebrating the rich tapestry of European culture? You turn the preparations into an Edinburgh show, of course. I can’t imagine the European song and story circuit is that big (or even exists, actually), but John and Ollie (Jollie) are in clover. With £17,000 to spend and a set to hone, this likeable duo set about regaling their audience with songs of Swiss suicide clinics, Romanian vampires and Luxembourgian restaurants.

Deliciously timed, the songs are both funny and endearing. The pair are genuinely talented raconteurs who play off each other’s abundant foibles with precision and skill, mixing cheesy power ballads with stirring gothic folk. The vignette for Britain is a particularly witty skit on the celebrated football match between England and Germany in no-one’s land (“nein man’s land”) during World War I. Controversial penalties can be awfully destabilizing for international relations.

Less compelling are the subsidiary plots that spawn from the duo’s love interest in the same woman and the predictable European stereotypes. Jokes about French women with hairy armpits (however ironically delivered) surely belong to comedy’s Neanderthal age. More destructive of the overall quality of the show, however, is the unimaginative ending. As it builds to a finale, what was witty banter descends into an ill-conceived and petulant farce. A metaphor for European disintegration it may be, but it cheapens what is until then a slick and winning suite of comic parables.