Duo are the cat's pajamas

Slapstick, sketches, stand-up, acrobatics – disconcertingly versatile American duo The Pajama Men will be taking audiences on an unfamiliar comedy journey at the Cat Laughs festival this year

THE PAJAMA MEN are fast shaking off their cult status on the fringe comedy circuit and are being sought out by the mainstream. The American duo, a highlight of this year’s Carlsberg Cat Laughs Festival, are a blend of physical theatre, mime, sketches and stand-up, sometimes reminiscent of Abbott and Costello, at other times of The League Of Gentlemen.

The Pajama Men are Shenoah Allen and Mark Chavez, twentysomethings from Albuquerque, New Mexico who have won the Australian “Barry” award (a sort of Down Under Perrier prize). Veterans of the experimental theatre circuit in the US, they take their name from their on-stage garb; their convoluted comedy-drama narratives don’t use props, costumes or sets. “Trying to describe what we do would put people off,” says Allen. “Are we clowns? Are we mime artists? Is it physical theatre? Is it improv? Can we do stand-up? If I heard how we were described, I probably wouldn’t go and see us.”

They met in an improv group in New Mexico and sensed from the beginning that their skills were complementary. “As we say in the show, ‘We know each other so well we finish each other’s . . . sandwiches’,” says Chavez. “Our shows are about 20 per cent improv and we can only do this because we know where the other person is going with something.”

A few years ago the famed Second City improv group from Chicago suggested that the duo move outside the US fringe theatre circuit and try the Edinburgh fringe festival.

“Edinburgh worked really well for us because though we are a comedy act, it wasn’t stand-up, so we got a theatre audience as well,” says Allen.

It helps, too, that they're ferociously good mimics and have splendid vocal acrobatic skills. The show they're touring at the moment, The Last Stand to Reason– which broke the box-office record at London's Soho Theatre during its eight-week run over December/January – is set on a train. "There's murder and robbery and quite a lot besides," says Allen. "You really have to just allow yourself to go with it."

The show is fast-paced, and for the first 10 minutes it’s very disconcerting as a bewildering number of characters and set-ups are thrown at you. But once you get used to the pace, the duo’s dexterity (both physical and verbal) allows them to present a weirdly “noir” story in a comic light, their dizzying slapstick like a contemporary Marx Brothers.

Although the Pajama Men are discussing TV possibilities, “something changes when that happens – when you pull on a character’s costume and don’t have to just really work to get it across, as on the stage. Our whole show is based around bringing people on this really demented journey. And getting people to believe in that is part of the show.”

Different laughs for the diehards

AUSTRALIANRebecca Austin is the new face at the helm of the Carlsberg Cat Laughs Comedy Festival in Kilkenny. The new artistic director worked in comedy in Australia before running the busy Assembly venue at the Edinburgh Fringe, and has also been artistic director of the Brighton Comedy Festival. Austin has visited Cat Laughs for the past five years, both as a punter and scouring new talent. "It's the only big comedy festival left which isn't media- or industry-dominated," she says.

She wants to make changes but retain the festival’s spirit. “There’s about 22,000 tickets each year and about 94 per cent are sold – a very, very high percentage,” she says. “I want to inject different things, but I also want to respect what has made Cat Laughs so popular – and so appealing to the acts.” Austin has retained the “compilation show” feel, with shows featuring four acts, but is broadening it out from stand-up.

“Cat Laughs this year will feature non-stand-up acts, such as The Pajama Men, Tim Key [the first poet to win the Edinburgh Comedy Award] and Idiots of Ants [a UK sketch group], aimed at the diehard comedy aficionados. I think the average person goes to Kilkenny for the stand-up acts, but this is a chance for them to experience a different style.”

There’s no improv this year and fewer US acts on the bill. “The Irish and the UK acts are more obvious picks than the US,” says Austin. “It’s [the US is] a harder market to try and select real talent from, and there is a lot to wade through. I’m not a fan of the bull-headed American comic who does the same material no matter what city they’re in. The US comics we have this year are exceptional talents: we have Rich Hall, Mike Wilmot and Dom Irrera returning – all real ‘foundation’ acts of the festival – but the guy I’d advise people to look out for is a brilliant American called Moshe Kasher.”

Among the Irish acts are Dara Ó Briain, Des Bishop, Ardal O’Hanlon, Barry Murphy and David O’Doherty, while from the UK there’s Simon Amstell, Jon Richardson, Sarah Millican and Justin Moorhouse.

But the act to steal the festival this year could be poet Tim Key. With his slightly shambolic appearance, he can use poetry to bring you places you never thought possible. Some may recognise him as the resident poet on Charlie Brooker's BBC Screenwipeprogramme, but in a live setting he brings his work to a different level.

The Carlsberg Cat Laughs festival is in Kilkenny, June 3-7; carlsbergcatlaughs.com