Colin Hoult / Anna Mann @ Pleasance Courtyard
Luvvies are mercilessly lampooned in A Sketch Show for Depressives, which opens with two guys in unitards who seem to have mistakenly wandered over from West Side Story.
These two victims, one with enormous arms and the other with an enormous beard, play the straight men to Anna's warped character and soak up much of her bitterness. The queenliness of Anna works brilliantly with her catty comments to the audience and skits of people who have failed at life. But overall the show is hit and miss, drifting from its central theme into a hodgepodge of unrelated impressions which, while funny, don't add up to a coherent whole.
A selection of northern voices are extremely good, including an evil old hag whose sole purpose in life is to hoover up all the reduced items in the supermarket, and an abusive Scouse PE teacher. But there are several points, including a weird Tourette-ish wannabe politician, which feel stale and leave The Skinny utterly cold, although there are a couple of people dotted through the audience in incomprehensible hysterics.
The show finishes with a skit where the three cast members watch a toy train, stroking chins but ultimately admitting they have no idea what it's all about. The train is left to trip up the audience as they exit. Overall, it's too much warp without the weft.
Colin Hoult / Anna Mann: A Sketch Show for Depressives, Pleasance Courtyard (Beneath), 3-28 Aug (not 17), 7pm, £6-10