If you have your finger firmly on the comedy pulse you should know Charly Clive and Ellen Robertson from their excellent BBC Three one-off which dramatised the story of how they became friends as children and how Clive dealt with the diagnosis of a brain tumour. They are clearly destined for big TV things, but in the meantime there's this inventive sketch show which again touches on their close childhood friendship but skates past the brain tumour bit.

The running gag set up at the outset is that they are hoping that members of the audience will fancy them. Why else do sketch comedy after all? This playful subtext punctuates a number of imaginative skits that take a seemingly mundane, ordinary situation and blow it out of all proportion to squeeze maximum laughs from it.

There's Facebook as the Wild West, a recurring joke about the secret to the long marriage between novelist Stephen King and his wife Tabitha. Not a common subject for sketch groups I must say. And every now and then there is a telling reference to their hosting of a school assembly alongside asides about fingering and nits. A previous host had gone onto great things and they thought the same would happen to them. Needless to say things did not go to plan. 

Naturally they've got great chemistry, bouncing off each other in both scripted and what appear to be unscripted ways. It's really all about friendship here. And whether things go pear-shaped or smoothly the important thing is that they've always got their friendship to fall back on. An hour in their company might not make you fancy them but it will probably make you want to be friends with them forever.

Britney, Friends And Nothing More, Pleasance Courtyard, until August 28. Buy tickets here.

four stars