Boys & Girls

• Craig Angus
• 9 August 2017

Battle-of-the-sexes sketch show proves too predictable

Tom Worsley and Alice Marshall start their show bounding on stage wearing, respectively, a giant fake cock and pair of tits, dancing about the sauna that is the upstairs of The Mockingbird. Never judge a book by its cover, obviously, but it's not a great start.

Still, Boys & Girls isn't the crass write-off the first minute suggests it could be. If anything, it's a sensitive and occasionally perceptive show; as perceptive an hour as the parameters of 'the war of the sexes' will allow, anyway. Exploring the male vs female relationship through the eyes of royalty, fumbling teenagers and siblings, a lot of what's said rings true.

Worsley and Marshall, with a broader vision, could pull off a wonderful show aimed at anxious teenagers, but the majority of punchlines in Boys & Girls are telegraphed with too many sketches just tailing off unceremoniously. There is a fantastic high point that shows what might have been, a tender set-piece about death and the melancholy of growing old alone, the gravitas broken crudely in a manner that takes you aback. Sadly, for the most part, Boys & Girls goes nowhere fast.

Laughing Horse @ The Mockingbird, until 27 Aug (not 14), 10.15pm, free.