Something Fishy

This is one of those shows you’re either going to love or hate. If you love children’s entertainers, fish and the TV series “The League of Gentlemen”, then you’ll be fine. If, like me, you don’t really care for any of these, then it’s not such a mirthful proposition.

On arrival, you are greeted by the two performers (Liz Hague and Kate Mooney) floating onstage in a yellow dinghy. “Mind the water!” they cry, as the audience finds its seats. So far, so good. Their characters, Daisy and Petunia, are couple of jolly-hockeysticks adventurers who then proceed to get washed-up at the village of “Beever”, where they encounter a series of weirdoes.

Or at least that’s what they’re supposed to be. In fact, the hideously twisted faces and strangulated voices of the half dozen or so nutters that populate the town look like they’re straight out of My Big Bumper Book Of How To Do Bonkers Acting. Highly derivative of many a dodgy sketch show, everyone who’s meant to be mad suddenly develops a hunchback and an underbite, or simply growls in a larynx-busting basso profundo.

On the plus side, the pair are clearly talented and are highly inventive with staging and props (a particularly loony fish costume was hilarious). They also came up with some slick storytelling devices, but a compendium of theatrical devices does not, in itself, make a show. They’ll get better, though, I’m sure.