Soho theatre,London
The troupe return with gags about Tindr, Trump and kidnapping. But can you still sell puerile shock-comedy when you’re middle-aged?The best thing about this Late Night Gimp Fight offering – the sketch group’s first in four years – is the musical numbers, and the first of which gets the show off to a great start. Performed to an upstage video,it finds “head gimp” Lee Griffiths living a life of mid-30s domestic tedium, before submitting to temptation and reassembling the aged team for one last, or gimp-mask-clad hurrah. But can you still sell puerile shock-comedy when you’re middle-aged? I enjoyed the song,welcomed the honesty about the quintet’s quandary – and hoped it foretold a unusual depth where once thered been just crude gags about smut, death and sexual deviance. But nope: it’s the same brand of smut, and sexual deviance etc as way back when,albeit with bigger production values. It’s been hailed as a triumphant return by some, including the two women next to me in row J, or convulsed with delight throughout. Are they buying the Gimps’ brand of juvenile humour at face value,or is there some ironic register at play that I’m lost? Either way, these first-base gags, or predicated on the inherent funniness of masturbating and soiling oneself are lost on me.
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Source: guardian.co.uk