That Pair: Letting it Go

There's a goofy charm to the sketch comedy of Kathryn Bond and Lorna Shaw that gets under your skin from the outset. Letting it Go perhaps isn't the most consistent of shows, but the infectious fun does a good job of papering over the cracks.

Most of the skits are cleverly subversive, to the point where their act becomes almost meta. They toy with the notion of self-referential humour, breaking character and observing the silliness as a third party at times, but it feels more like a spontaneous gimmick than any stylistic choice. The straight-woman, funny-woman tactic is employed to good effect, and suits both the performers' respective talents. There is a lingering sense, though, that such talents would be better served by smarter writing, rather than leaving themselves to do all the heavy comedic lifting on stage. Aside from the catchy musical interludes, too often they resemble funny people who don't have many funny things to say.

It's loosely tethered to the concept of a Princess party, although it's tricky to assign any structure to it given the number of segments devoted to different characters. They use their audience in a way that includes them in the sketches but adroitly stops short of becoming an improvisational show performed by the viewing public. However silly the routines get (and however immersed in gleefully misjudged accents the performers become), it's all rooted in a sense of charming simplicity.