Cariad and Louise's Character Hour

At the Traverse, Gary McNair currently embodies a growing trend in sketch and character comedy at the Fringe. Comics are, frequently, rounded actors. Harvey, Garvey and the Kane at Underbelly is almost perfectly symbolic of this in its employment of TV actors; Tom Basden continues to blur the line between play and standup; performers such as Ross Sutherland are fusing the newly plentiful spoken-word genre with straight standup.

The sketch double-act comprised of Cariad Lloyd and Louise Ford, is another group leading the charge in this respect. Their blissfully absurd hour of bonkers character comedy is a complete joy to watch. With mini-musical interludes between sketches right out of Smack the Pony’s handbook, Lloyd and Ford introduce us to haphazard creations, from Alan, a Jesus impersonator with a rather unholy wife, to conceited fashionistas and Tim Burton’s autonomous hedgehog hair.

Prepare also for a wide range of audience participation in this set. Lloyd and Ford are impishly delightful in their various guises: flirting, teasing and outright reprimanding their crowds. Even when certain sketches go awry, Lloyd and Ford pull us back on track in seconds with grace and guile (though they dwell excessively on certain sketches at times). This playful pair are sensationally deft and drilled, and their innovative, intoxicating writing adds further credit to the character comedy genre at the Fringe – a genre that one hopes will benefit from their talent for many years to come.