Review: Comedy Garden: Sam Simmons/Pajama Men

If life in Britain has taken on an unsettling, somewhat surreal tone over the past week, an afternoon spent with two of the most determinedly weird acts in international comedy seems a fitting chance for escapism. While the choice of the much more conventional Dan Atkinson as compere gets us off to an awkward and faltering start, the off-kilter treats in store later more than make up for it.

American sketch duo The Pajama Men (pictured above) take a loose, semi-improvised approach today, and it’s a joy to see two men so in tune with one another that their occasional smiles and half-giggles add to, rather than diminish, their performance. The most illustrative set-piece comes when the two men become a “two-headed monster” and take random audience questions, then slowly improvise one single answer while their voices remain in perfect unison. Other skits are more scripted, such as the framing device of two news readers reading out daft story summaries – “Dolphins don’t exist! … They’re just sharks on ecstasy”.

They are as physically brilliant and daft as always, combining mime, Marx Brothers-esque one-liners, and a distinctive take on improv-style parlour games with warmth, playfulness and skill. Almost every (considerable) comic risk they take pays off wonderfully.

Australia’s Sam Simmons is in a much more confrontational mood. He’s from a similar camp to the PJs, with weird, joke-like non-sequiturs, odd flights of fancy, and daft physical sections involving an array of props being the order of the day. But he brings these across with a ferocity that sits at an odd angle from the whimsy.

He’s angry at the heat in the tent, the audience’s (mostly imagined) unresponsiveness, the headache he’s got after two spirit-based drinks on the train on the way over, and states his intention at the start of the gig to “run this fucking thing into the ground.”

He does no such thing, which is testament to his skill in making his audience work with him, if partly through fear of upsetting a man who seems to be genuinely teetering on the edge of a breakdown. A section in which Simmons uses reindeer hooves for hands, in an attempt to make “a relaxing cup of tea” with a fragile-looking teapot and cup, has the audience in fits of typically patchy, unsure and occasionally hysterical laughter.

All in all, a refreshingly ridiculous way to spend a Saturday afternoon, at the end of a week that has refused to make a lot more sense itself.

Sam Simmons and The Pajama Men played Bristol Comedy Garden on Saturday, July 2. The Comedy Garden finishes tonight, Sunday, July 3. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.bristolcomedygarden.co.uk