The Not So Late Show @ Pleasance Dome
Potential brilliance from double act Ross Brierley and Joshua Sadler
There is more originality and inventiveness within a few minutes of this show than in the entire duration of other Fringe hours. The Not So Late Show is a strange hybrid, and Ross Brierley and Josh Sadler perhaps haven't quite worked out how best to spoof the TV chat show format. The pair have the onstage rapport of an old school double act, and one that goes further back than the obvious influence of Reeves and Mortimer too. It is traditional, British, and there's a bit of Morecambe and Wise going on in the way they can finish each other's sentences. It's so unusual to see this these days – a double act today usually means a sketch duo – but it is a quality that makes Ross and Josh both simultaneously a throwback and also refreshing.
Even the physical contrast between them seems to come from some bygone variety night. Brierley, who's lean and dapper, plays – and occasionally subverts – the straight-laced half of the pair, while Sadler is a stocky power atom seeming to trap boundless energy. As for the material, that energy and anarchy is always trying to break out. An interview with the T-Rex from Jurassic Park, all played with a touch of po-faced seriousness, is simply joyous. A Glaswegian Super Mario is less successful, but comes from a similar seam of daftness of which they have plenty.
In addition to the chat show interviews the hour includes filmed parodies of adverts and the like. These seem a little unnecessary in a live show and the spoof loses a level of irony. The hour suffers because in these occasional moments it seems like the audience is just here to provide a laughter track for any producers that might happen to be in the room. In other words, it becomes a straightforward TV pitch rather than a send-up of a Saturday night show. However, these are only snags holding them back – they have the kind of talent and brand of alternative comedy that could later become popular and reshape the norm.