Unexpected Items

The Unexpected Items are six well-spoken twenty-somethings offering a fine line in quintessentially British sketch comedy. Mostly alumni of the Oxford Revue and decked out in uniforms of cashmere and rugby shirts, their style is packed with consciously clever material and last-gasp reveals. But as it turns out, it’s this knack for building in twists that provides a much-needed saving grace when sketches commit too often and too readily to underdeveloped gags.

The group first attracted attention with their hugely popular viral video ‘Gap Yah’, a well-observed sendup of callous rich kids partying and patronising their way through Third World aid projects. With today’s audience presumably boosted by the resulting fan-base, Matt Lacey’s first plummy vowels are greeted with anticipatory laughter. Though it’s by no means their only trick, nothing—bar an irresistibly daft choreographed finale—lives up to this greatest hit.

Much of the show emerges from this same world of eccentric and generally objectionable middle-class caricatures, and so we’re faced with butch female hockey coaches, well-to-do parents spouting pretentious French loan words and even a fleeting reference to yuppie recruiters Deloitte. When a riff recasting Carol Ann Duffy as Britney Spears outstays its welcome, you’re left guessing whether this is deliberately esoteric or simply an odd choice of subject matter.

Each of the six displays a studied theatricality, an ironic disconnection and a middle-distance gaze that gives the performance a polished, distinctly varsity feel – but with this comes just a hint of insincerity. This is a confident but often misjudged Fringe debut from a troupe deservedly boasting millions of hits on YouTube – but only a handful on stage.