Comedy / bristol comedy garden
Review:Comedy Garden: Cardinal Burns/Tony Law
Wednesday night in Bristol Comedy Garden’s Apple Top was an explosion of character-based comedy, featuring surreal sketches and endless unexpected turns.
Support act Tony Law is an unpredictable and absorbing Canadian performer whose approach to comedy is familiar and fresh all at once. His material is a fantastic mixture of the everyday and extraordinary, veering from anecdotes about Seaworld to buying cars or eating ice cream. His caricature of over-enthusiasm, swamped by apathy in a country rife with dodgy cars and poorly behaved dogs brought relentless laughs from the crowd.
Throughout the whole performance, his facial expressions contort with each new punchline. His rampant, unpredictable enthusiasm felt like a parody of American culture, all bluster and confidence. Though his pace slowed slightly towards the end, there’s no doubt that his Edinburgh show will be very compelling.
Cardinal Burns – aka Seb Cardinal and Dustin Demri-Burns – explode on to the stage with a level of perception and depth of performance that is immediately immersive. The characterisation in their sketches is perfect. They start with a budding romance between two insurance salesmen, who fall in love at a conference (despite their wives).
Instead of focusing on the tale’s more obvious homoerotic aspects, the two hone in instead on the growing affection between the characters. There’s plenty of perfectly observed small talk, car directions, ‘oh stop it,’ and ‘didn’t I? Yeah I did.’ The performance is addictive and compelling, contrasting modern romance with dull middle England.
The show grows in ferocity and depth: we cringe along with the two, in perfectly observed form, as they dance badly to Rihanna or recreate humiliating auditions. The contrast between sketches is mind-blowing – one particularly memorable scene features a French comedy pairing improvising sketches about potatoes and libraries. With a simple ‘bof’ and shrug of the shoulders, we were all in stitches.
Cardinal Burns are an incredible force on stage, wielding their talent for acting and characterisation alongside well-scripted lazy human interaction. Focusing on hypocrisy, power struggles and the complexities of male relationships and sexuality, it’s simple sketch comedy at its best.
Bristol Comedy Garden continues until Sunday, July 3 in Queen Square. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.bristolcomedygarden.co.uk
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
