Next Best Thing: How to Be Good at Everything

• Suzanne Black
• 11 August 2017

This article is from 2017.

A sort-of sketch show with lulls and a lack of commitment

Sketch comedy double-act Jay Bennett and Katie Davison promise a seminar of sorts in which the audience will leave knowing everything. Faux-workshops with cringeworthy management-speak and a David Brent-style lack of awareness are an established comedy genre. This show, despite the advertising blurb, is not that. It quickly morphs into a mime performance before jumping again to skits relying on audience 'volunteers', then some pee, poop and sex stuff, with a song to top it all off.

Billed as a sketch show, it ends up as a mish-mash of genres that doesn't fully commit to the seminar format; the mime and sketches have no clear through-line, and there are lulls during a long episode involving an imaginary hat and the repeated return to the poo motif.

Katie, as the sexually repressed braggart trying to keep everything on track, and Jay, as the sex-obsessed fool who unwittingly derails her efforts, have great rapport and the moments that developed their relationship were more-ish. Unfortunately, the best material on the day of this review was contributed by audience members whose bemusement and animosity towards the duo's antics inspired them to make their own entertainment.

Pleasance Courtyard, until 28 Aug (not 15), 4.45pm, £7.50–£9.50 (£6.50–£9).