Last year Katie Lyons and Morgan Lloyd Malcolm gained rave reviews and multiple nominations as best comedy double act for their brilliantly insane production, 13 O’clock. Now they are returning to the festival with an all new show entitled, The Receptionists.
The plot is more an excuse than anything else for some very funny sketches, but it centres round a dastardly employee setting the office self destruct button. It is left up to the two girls to track down the culprit, save the company and get some snacks on the way!
Enacted on a bare stage with crudely drawn sets projected onto the wall means that the girls adventures go from the office to some places far, far more surreal (a zen like garden where Cher appears, anyone?).
But the how and why of the plot doesn’t really matter when the two leads are so likeable and have the exceptional ability to wring out every laugh from their physical comedy routines. One such highlight is a scene involving one of the girls playing a creepy, anorak clad manager who on every emphasised word manages to spit out crisps onto the other girls face. Like the show, it’s silly and puerile but very, very funny.
Some of the humour is a bit hit and miss but on the whole you can just tell that the performers are enjoying themselves just as much as the audience.
4/5
Martin Miller
