Edinburgh Fringe 2008: Pappy's Fun Club - Funergy (Pappy's Fun Club: Funergy)

Member Name: Frankingsteins

Product:	Pappy's Fun Club: Funergy
Date:	13/08/08 (28 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lively, enthusiastic, funny, oddball comedy for all the family.

Disadvantages: Some parts are inevitably hit and miss, and may not appeal to the mature.

Returning for their second successful year at the Edinburgh Fringe, the energetic whippersnappers of Pappy's Fun Club have cobbled together a new show of zany antics and quick-fire turnarounds, loosely held together by what they imagine to be an epic plot.

If there's one show I'd recommend at the Edinburgh festival to appeal to audiences of various ages, tastes, creeds and orientations, it would be Pappy's Fun Club. Even if you hate it, you get a free badge at the end to decorate your jacket. This is the kind of performance I love to see at the Fringe, as the four performers dash around in an almost literal revolving door of characters, situations and abstract concepts personified, extremely well choreographed and so full of fun and energy that the team have been forced to coin a new phrase: 'Funergy.'

The overarching plot involves the Fun Club's attempt to power their show with some kind of funergy machine, and there's something about a whale, but it isn't necessary to get bogged down in the details. The recurring characters help to create the illusion of coherence and avoid this being a mere string of unconnected sketches that can be dipped in an out of like the stand-up of Tim Vine. It's also amusing to observe the seemingly genuine animosity between certain Fun Club members, as scenes are improvised or changed merely to irritate.

Although this is technically an adult show, I would have loved it just as much as a kid, and indeed the enthusiasm of the performers is oddly reminiscent of children's television presenters. And what other show at the festival features an enormous pirate blue whale, the anthropomorphising of the internet and the City of Nottingham?

'Pappy's Fun Club: Funergy' is on at the Pleasance's Cabaret Bar, from 30th July to 25th August 2008 (not 11th) at 6:40pm, lasting one hour. Tickets cost £12 - £14 (£10.50 - £12.50 concessions).

Summary: 30th July to 25th August (not 11th).