Jigsaw: Gettin' Jiggy

An ensemble consisting of three standups (the well established Dan Antopolski and up-and-comers Nat Luurtsema and Tom Craine), Jigsaw came together last year and instantly garnered much praise for their fast-paced, smart take on the sketch show genre. Proving they’re no slouches—it must be hard work to fill an hour when your sketches average about 30 seconds each—they’ve returned this year with more of the same. It’s a tight, well written and good-natured show, with some really good concepts and plenty of passably amusing, if not particularly ground-breaking, ones. 

Antopolski can be an offputtingly smug presence on his own, but he’s nicely sent up and complemented here by his companions. One sketch involves him apparently stepping out of character and chatting up a girl in the audience, while Luurtsema acts as his “wing man,” naively pointing out his failings in the process of trying to make him sound attractive. There’s a brilliant sketch where a banal conversation between a London rudeboy and rudegirl gets all metaphysical, and some nice recurring themes involving everyone's favourite alcoholic harbinger of doom, the Jagerbomb. 

Luurtsema is a highly likeable straightwoman, who wins the audience over sufficiently to excuse her fit of uncontrollable giggles during the performance and Craine is an endearingly enthusiastic, nicely over-the-top presence. The pieces fit together and, like a 100-piece jigsaw it’s a relatively unchallenging, but highly diverting, way to spend an hour.