The Good News: Farewell Tim

• Brian Donaldson
• 26 August 2016

This article is from 2016.

credit: Amelia Oakley

A cunning and overwhelmingly fresh sketch show about a deceased friend

It's downright lazy journalism to simply draw attention to the physical nature of a comedian and is to be avoided at all times. So, here goes: watching Charlie Robb and Sam Knights perform as a duo is a little bit like seeing Will Mellor and Rowan Atkinson perform together (at last!). Robb has the everyman charm of the Two Pints of Lager man (but funnier, obviously) while Knights moves, bends and contorts his face into such unruly shapes and curious emotion ranges that the Mr Bean actor could only stand back and admire.

All that is fine and well, but do they have a show to back up their demeanours? As it happens they most certainly do, with Farewell Tim being a sketch-based homage to a departed pal. Of the routines which hit the mark (these can be numbered overwhelmingly in the majority), there's an amusingly awkward reference to Magic Mike, a spelling bee gone horribly wrong and a delightful short sketch which cleverly merges a cult 90s horror with an all-too contemporary shopping experience.

The vintage store sketch might make an exaggerated nod to the League of Gentlemen and their local-shop nastiness, but in the main, there's a freshness to The Good News men and their daft slices of broken comedy. And just when you thought the end was nigh, they even throw in a cunning little twist to their recurring tale.

Pleasance Courtyard, run ended.