Flesh and Blood and Fish and Fowl

When the human race has all but died out, when the Earth has erased almost all evidence of our existence, the last redoubt of our once great civilisation will be … the back office of a microwave meal manufacturer.

As a premise, it sounds half-baked; but like Flesh and Blood and Fish and Fowl itself, the more you stew on it, the more sense it makes. Jerry (Geoff Sobelle) and Rhoda (Charlotte Ford) are the logical conclusion of the typical office environment, where a trip to the watercooler has more to do with marking time than with thirst: they cling to office etiquette even as creepers and critters encroach inexorably on their cubicles.

Sobelle’s considerable clowning skills get a thorough workout, parodying displacement activities from photocopying to fly-swatting. But it’s the bizarre work of the clearly unhinged Jessica Grindstaff and Erik Sanko – puppeteering and remote-controlling stuffed woodland creatures that peek from drawers or erupt from boxes of printer paper – that eventually leaves the audience as hysterical as the characters, laughing uncontrollably with next to no idea why.

Traverse @ St Stephen’s, 228 1404, until 28 Aug (not 23), 7pm, £17–£19 (£12–£13).