Sheeps: Dancing with Lisa

Youth, health and wealth: assets we all yearn to keep hold of, unless you’re in a sketch troupe at the Fringe, where, frankly, they’re frowned upon. Sheeps are relatively recent graduates from Cambridge Footlights, that illustrious comedy conveyer belt, and you can’t help but wonder if some of this curiously divided crowd have come with arms ready-folded. More fool them, as the well-honed trio are fabulously funny.

They’re far from the poshest troupe, in truth, and their roles are nicely defined here. Liam Williams brings northern grit, the lanky Alastair Roberts boasts a haughty hint of Joe Cornish, and if Sheeps were Ghostbusters, Daran Johnson would definitely be Ray. In fact Cornish is a useful reference point, as Sheeps are cut from a similar cloth to the much-loved (but once sneered at for their schooling) Adam and Joe: lots of ingenious but unpretentious wordplay and an air of saucy niceness.

The show begins with a simple but convention-busting visual gag and continues in that vein, actively testing the tropes of sketch comedy. There’s a running mystical thread about an ethereal riddle and an iconic eagle—“the owl of the night,” says a portentous but bewildered Williams— and the pacing is all-but perfect. Bar a slight late dip, it’s a controlled torrent of sly silliness that often leaves you marvelling at their inventiveness.

Not that everyone in this particular audience would agree. While the vast majority are in delirious hysterics, a small but noticeable faction watch on stony-faced. This includes one of TV’s best-known comedians, perhaps envying their youthful vigour. But even he eventually cracks, and it’s intriguing to watch other steadfast frowns melt along the way. These cunning clowns will wear you down eventually.