Sheeps: Dancing with Lisa

Sheeps are perhaps the most tiring of festival prospects; a young male sketch trio. Don’t let that put you off though, because this is one of the more inventive and amusing sketch shows on offer this month. Before the show even starts, they’re lining up jokes just to subvert them when it does. This is the nature of the post-modern sketch gang, and it’s a formula which can be just as tiring in itself, but Sheeps avoid overdoing it.

All three characters have well defined roles within the group, and the show is impressively structured, with just the right amount of bickering between performers. The writing is fairly strong, too, as the solving of a mysterious riddle strings together a range of quite clever sketches about the cost of Hollywood success or time-travelling offspring. There are a few skits that lack the same spark of imagination but it’s all delivered with such enthusiasm that it’s difficult to resist their charm. They’re certainly not averse to taking some risks either, as a pitch black (literally) sketch about a toy shop demonstrates beautifully, even using silence for a good pay off. Incorporating a few more of these risks could produce something really great, but this is already one of the more accomplished young sketch troupes around.