Boris and Sergey's Vaudevillian Adventure

The sordid imaginative offspring of the Flabbergast Theatre group, Boris and Sergey are two Eastern European confidence tricksters who also happen to be faceless leather bunraku puppets. Bickering and cursing through a uniquely sleazy and mishap-prone vaudeville extravaganza, the duo may just become the break-out comedy double act of this year's Fringe. The show starts off as profanely hilarious, and only escalates from there. 

The technical brilliance on display cannot be exaggerated. Boris and Sergey are possessed with so much personality and strange, frantic anima that the audience will find themselves making eye contact with the pair, despite their lack of eyes and the presence of six black-clad puppeteers, who never once disturb the illusion. We may have become used to dummies mocking their own ventriloquists, but puppets who force their manipulators to twist into ever-stranger contortions in order to control them is a sight to behold.

'Flawless' is a tough word to use honestly, but is the only suitable description for an evening's entertainment that encompasses poker tricks, indoor explosives, an odd sense of pathos and the strangest cover of Kate Bush ever. Much credit should go to the enormous talents of the cast/puppeteers, who not only have to act as one, but who improvise with a furious proficiency that would be beyond many less encumbered performers.

More than mere marvels of puppetry, Boris and Sergey are vividly realised characters who we follow from their surreal and beautiful origin to their infernally grim reckoning. Shows this excellent don't stay secret for long.