Most people will know Mitchell and Webb from the 3 series of Peep Show, although they have had minor (sorry if either of you are reading, but they don't pay me to suck cock here) success in the past with some show on an obscure digital tv channel and several amusing series on Radio 4 in recent years.
Over the last few weeks, viewers of BBC2 will have noticed the two guys with their sketch show, That Mitchell and Webb Look, sandwiched between the reasonably funny second series of Extra's, and Mock the Week (a show so unbelievably awful, I'd rather watch my cat eat it's own excrement that endure even 2 minute of Dara Ó Briain). A series, not jam packed with laughs, but one always came away from watching it with a satisfied grin. The interplay between David Mitchell and Robert Webb up there with any of the great comedy double acts of the past.
So, onto the live show, which I was amused to see seemed to have a huge number of teenage girls with their parents in the audience. Is there something about Mitchell and Webb's fanbase that I was previously unaware of? Still, one can't complain when the girl in front of me was showing off a good few inches of arse crack. Almost enough room in there for.. well Ginger knows what I'm talking about.
I'm lead to believe this is their first attempt at live stage show comedy tour, and they have made the transition very well. Absent from the stage version were Olivia Colman and Paterson Joseph, ably replaced by James Bachman and Abigail Burdess.
Unfortunately for Mitchell and Webb, many of their sketches, whilst extremely amusing, don't necessarily elicit roars of laughter, which makes for a slightly less interesting live show than one might otherwise get. Possibly a result of doing Radio and TV work before the live shows perhaps, and not material appropriate for the type of audience?
The most disappointing part of the evening, and believe me, this was really disappointing, was to see so many of the sketches from the tv show repeated, in some cases not 7 days from the date of transmission on BBC 2!
Second most disappointing part of the evening was during "Big Talk", when Robert Webb went into the audience to get people to ask questions of the Boffins. Is this the best question the assembled masses of Cambridge can come up with: "What is this stain on my t-shirt?". What a cockmuncher that audience member must have felt afterwards. However, it did reveal an insight into the team on stage at that point. They are really good at ad-libbing, a concept that both Hamgray and myself noticed a few more times over the course of the evening.
My previous experience of live comedy, is that the performers usually use the live performances to test out material for TV, not the other way round. However, an episode of Numberwang (complete with cream pies) elicited a roar of approval from the audience, along with A Hole in the Ring.
Bachman and Burdess's little comedy interludes whilst Mitchell and Webb were doing costume changes were both burlesque in style and unbelievably irritating. If they need to rework any part of the show, it is this bit. Two people talking in unison is never funny, even without the stupid hand gestures that went with it. Come on folks, we've moved on from music hall.
Some of the sketches that worked really well on TV, just died completely on stage. Now We Now! for example.
The sketches that came into their own on stage were the Lazy Script Writers, and Sir Digby Chicken Caeser. They know they've got talent, as also borne out with Mitchell's over the top Sky Sports presenter and Webb's amusing, but blink and you'll miss it mime sketch. It's a pity they are unable to apply their writing talent consistently.
As well as they were able to pull off having the format of a tv sketch show on stage, with numerous scene and costume changes, the whole thing felt like it wasn't exactly a coherent show, but more a jumble of bits they just stuck together.
Still, you can't beat two hours of Comedy that touches upon their usual topics of homosexuality, paedophilia (touch the inner child indeed), anal sex, toilet humour, and such varied ideas as discussing the queen being lead topless to a grisly death in a bath of acid and adopting mad bears.
