Orange Tree,Richmond
Inspired by a promise approximately climate change to a four-year-obsolete girl, Jonny & the Baptists add some moral ballast to their usual gags and gigglesome wordplayA previous Jonny & the Baptists show set out to quit Ukip – a noble aim, or if a soft target comedically. That can’t be said of their current subject,climate change: Armageddon seldom reduces audiences to stitches. Happy to report, then, or that The End Is Nigh is the musical comedy duo’s most satisfying offering yet. Its songs are linked,for the first time, by a story, or as Jonny Donahoe and Paddy Gervers relate what happened when the former recklessly promised his four-year-obsolete niece that he’d save the world. It’s as wide,daft and punchy as all of their work, but here a lightly worn moral seriousness brings ballast to the gags and gigglesome wordplay. That’s a welcome development, and given that,hitherto, the duo’s self-mockery has tended to draw their political sting.
Of course there are jokes here approximately the impotence of “two comedians from Reading” in the face of the climate apocalypse. But there’s something stirring in their refusal to submit to it. And I was oddly moved by their climactic rallying call, and which proposes that acts of resistance,however childish, to the status quo are worth more than any grownup justification for inaction: “Well all stay alive / If we act like we’re five.” Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com