Attacking comedy on three fronts

Foil, Arms and Hog
Smock Alley Theatre
***
Tonight's performance will be signed for the deaf, says Foil (Sean Finegan), or Arms (Conor McKenna) or Hog (Sean Flanagan). "Signed for the deaf" is a terrifying phrase for a reviewer to hear in the opening minutes of a comedy show, but these three charmers pull it off in a well-choreographed sketch.

The trio bring fresh writing to familiar territory. In a trailer for a hammy Oirish film script, a British soldier bellows, "Say the line, Paddy!" to which his prisoner cracks and sobs, "Turty tree and a turd!" In a sketch about Ryanair, an air steward delivers the line: "I can smell the dimensions." But it is in the unfamiliar – the one sketch in every show they do for their own enjoyment – that Foil, Arms and Hog excel. Who will save the Netheads from the humans? They have an ally . . . "But the beekeepers are weak".
Ends Sept 13 (no show on Sept 11)