Cardinal Burns

Rare is the comedy duo with a cult Channel 4 TV show that doesn’t just repackage characters and catchphrases for the stage. Seb Cardinal and Dustin Demri-Burns do bring out their reality TV sloane and her simpering Japanese sidekick, along with camp ghosthunters Jason and Phil (“FYI, the walls are bleeding”). But much of the best material – silly, clever, fondly camp and grounded in suburban ennui – belongs to their stage shows alone. A Mark Cousins-style interviewer gives the Culture Show treatment to an employee of Foot Locker. A gay couple breathlessly recount their first tryst at a business conference in Hove (“we ate fish and chips”). And there’s a set of sketches performed in GCSE French by their scarf-wearing alter-egos, full of biblioteques and pomme de terres. The only misjudgement is a song finale with two Turkish cab drivers whose lasciviousness has a little too much edge.

Corn Exchange, Brighton Dome, 24 October 2014

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