There is some excellent writing and some pitch perfect performances in this tight, hilarious hour of sketch comedy, which is currently packing them in at a lunchtime spot at the Gilded Balloon.
Just These, Please are comedy writer and actor Will Sebag-Montefiore, full-time solicitor Tom Dickson, film editor and actor Philippa Carson and actor and poet Georgie Jones.
There’s definitely a retro feeling about this show – but it is packed with fresh funny and imaginative ideas.
Wearing men’s suits and using the minimum of props the four members of Just, These Please hop on and off stage from behind a black backdrop. There’s a quick burst of music in between each sketch and a quick nod between the performers on stage at the end of each one.
The short sketches are economically written and packed with laughs. Although there are a lot of quick changes you never feel the action is rushed because each of the little vignettes is so perfectly framed.
There’s a lot of ideas inspired by the workplace – job interviews, conferences, leaving dos. But there are also more abstract ideas – smoothies which talk to you, a vagina which chats to you while you are in the shower, a penis that needs encouragement.
The action is nicely balanced between all four members of the troupe – with women and men having an equal share of the action – which is refreshing. It makes a welcome change from the currently dominant posh shouty man model of sketch comedy.
Members of Just These Please also have the ability to drop in and out of a range of regional accents, having lived and worked and had parents from different areas of the UK and Ireland. Again – it's preferable to the omnipresent Oxbridge bellowing.
What’s lacking is a sense of who the individual performers are and of their relationship to each other – but as a group which has only come together for this year’s Fringe, maybe that is something they have still to work out.
It’s not clear whether the members of Just These, Please are committed to working together as a sketch group or whether they have just come together to have a bit of fun in Edinburgh. But there is an impressive array of talent at work here. Perhaps this is the beginning of something great.
Until August 27. Tickets here.
Read more Edinburgh Fringe reviews here.
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