Comedy Review - Foil, Arms and Hog / A Betrayal of Penguins @ Whelans

Sketch comedy can be a pretty tricky thing to get right. For every ‘The Two Ronnie’s’ you have Frankie Boyle’s ‘Tramadol Nights’ and for every two good sketches in ‘That Mitchell and Webb look’ , you have a further ten other sketches in ‘That Mitchell and Webb look’. The hardest thing about any sketch show is the hit rate of the good sketches. You could be laughing away for ages and then suddenly be met with a horrible unfunny silence that has you staring into a drink until the pain has gone away. A little bit like at a wedding where the best man suddenly decides to mention that time he thought this day would never come after he walked in on you and the butch Polish mature student back in first year during your ‘experimental’ stage. Yes, while the same applies to straight stand-up, it is a lot harder to cover up during a sketch show. I have to admit that sketch comedy was never really my bag, but the show put on by ‘Foil, Arms and Hog’ with support from ‘A Betrayal of Penguins’ really did make me eat my words.

First up in the genuinely good spot for comedy, Whelan’s, were ‘A Betrayal of Penguins’ whose set consisted of four sketches from their normally hour-long show which sees them play a number of characters at a wedding. The sketches ranged from a fantastic skit with an interviewee who has stretched the truth, to the highlight of their set, a confrontation between rival fathers always trying to one-up each other. From what I saw, I will one hundred percent be checking out the full show and look forward to what they can offer up next.

‘Foil, Arms and Hog’ took to the stage clearly in the mood to party - balloons fell and confetti was thrown. If for some reason the comedy doesn’t work out, these gentlemen could easily find a job planning funerals as you find yourself in a rather good mood even without any actual sketches. (Granted its only a personal opinion that funerals need fiesta mood of course.) The Edinburgh vets find a perfect balance between the surreal and observational, with sketches going from a disgruntled visit to the Samaritans to - possibly my favorite of the night - a twenty-second sketch in slow motion about a Dublin dance floor. The boys took the opportunity to try out a few new sketches which, rather annoyingly for anyone writing comedy in Ireland at the moment, all worked. Having missing these guys when they played at Electric Picnic (possibly because I was trying to find the perfect balance in my body between internal organs, kangaroo, shame and over-priced cocktails) I do regret it, and will be checking out the boys again. 

So while perfect sketch comedy is harder to get right than a drunken doctor performing eye surgery in the dark, its nice to know that the future of the game is not in the hands of the likes of ‘The Savage Eye’ but instead with people with thoroughly deserve to be on the cusp of making it, and hopefully ‘Foil, Arms and Hog’ and ‘A Betrayal of Penguins’ will be constantly moving onto bigger stages, and then television.