Gamarjobat are a Japanese double act who, complete with red and yellow Mohawks, have won countless awards for getting the audience rolling with laughter with their zany, silent sketches and impressively fantastic physical comedy.
I stumbled by chance on Gamarjobat performing their show during last year’s Fringe and was suitably impressed. So I was ecstatic to hear that they had returned to this year’s festival, complete with a fresh new production.
In only a year the group have honed their skills to perfection, their comedy timing and new routines are spectacular. The audience are helpless with laughter as the performers re-enact a police car chase with toy cars on their heads and kazoo’s in their mouth for added sound effects. A twisted idea that is great fun to watch and almost impossible to describe.
Better still is that despite only a limited grasp of the English language, they are no longer afraid to incorporate the audience into their show, be it performing a voodoo curse on the parents in the audience or bribing a little girl to come on stage, first with a lollypop, then ten pound notes and then when they haven’t been successful, with a handsome little boy.
Just at the moment when the audience is captivated and you can’t imagine how its going to get any funnier they surprise us by, well not being very funny at all.
Once the amazing first half is complete the format changes and involves the double act dressing up for a story involving robbers and a blind girl selling roses. It gives them a great opportunity to show off their physical comedy but there are long periods of silence in the crowd.
A slight disappointment then, but a stunningly inventive show nevertheless.
4/5
Martin Miller
