Review: The Penny Dreadfuls, Greenwich Theatre

In a crowded market, it's difficult to get noticed.

The League Of Gentlemen have the the dark doings of Royston Vasey, Little Britain is part of the furniture, Mitchell and Webb have a pop at pop culture any number if stand-ups, sketch mongers and character comics pick over modern life for crumbs of comic discomfort.

With the ground sliced and diced by some formidable foes, it's difficult to know why The Penny Dreadfuls deserted their Goonish USP to sally forth into sniper's alley. Except of course for their sheer enthusiasm for the challenge.

Their gung ho, preppy appetite for fun suggests not bristling up-and-comers looking to usurp the pride but boisterous whelps play-fighting the big boys for practice.

But we shouldn't dismiss them as naive plum duffers. The Pennys know their stuff - they are seasoned pros seeking to satisfy followers and newcomers alike.

Their bumbly Blue Peter enterprise may be a result of a work in progress but it may also be a cunning ploy to win our hearts. They charm when they don't score and flirt when U-turning out of comedic dead ends.

So what was their ambition in this offering? Characters both surreal and tragic, some topicality and some rollicking fagpacket gags played out to the full.

Some worked better on paper than in reality (the opening game show sketch was a stretch), some worked despite themselves (the Twilight skit hit the mark when in theory it should have died a death), some were fun but derivative (the role reversal of parent and child from AbFab for example) but best were the leftfield gags - the urban car race, the backyard YouTube wrestlers, the salty seadogs and their outlandish tales.

These uniformly worked because they allowed for a depth of character and a texture of emotion that necessarily escapes the quickfire quips. The Pennys know this, surely, because they came back time and again to add another layer.

Hats off all round to the performances. Thom Tuck in particular was required to contort, gurn and, of course, lady up again while Humphrey Ker had a good line in hormonal teenspeak and David Reed paraded his propensity for accent and character.

This was a show driven by nervous energy and trial and error. The torrents of laughter were the new element in this world premiere so there were some cute adjustments on the hoof.

The audience reflected back the bonhomie to produce a sense of community and the result was a winning evening that can only get sharper now it's a party and no longer a table read.

– From July 2010