Comedy / sketch comedy
Review: Sleeping Trees: Silly Funny Boys, Wardrobe Theatre
Sleeping Trees are a troupe of three comic actors. The premise of their latest show is that they are the Silly Funny Boys – three performers who were big on kids’ TV in the ’80s, a Frankenstein collage featuring pieces of Timmy Mallet, Noel Edmonds and Little & Large –who are back to stage a charity fundraiser.
This involves a procession of ‘acts from the 80s’ coming out and doing their ‘thing’ one more time, usually disastrously. But there is also a deeper narrative: each of the Silly Funny Boys feels guilt for an accident which happened 20 years ago and which caused a little girl called Lucy to end up in a coma. And it’s Lucy for whom they are now fundraising.
is needed now More than ever
The overall effect feels like a student revue: a series of skits pasted together with a flimsy overarching storyline. There are a few recurring themes and gags to try and maintain a sense of coherent development, but generally this show is a patchwork of ‘zany’ sketches around a popular entertainment theme.
But a professional show needs to offer more than a uni revue or a group of street performers –and Silly Funny Boys doesn’t. It lacks the pathos of a ‘faded ’80s icons struggling to do the same old shtick’ story. And the retro pastiche falls short, with the ’80s references being half-hearted and trite, the theatrical equivalent of just sticking on a multi-coloured jacket and combing your hair a bit funny.
Meanwhile, the deeper narrative of the characters’ guilt over the accident lacks any sort of emotional punch, because these characters are so sketchy and one-dimensional that any suggestion of mental anguish fails to gain any traction.
Most of all, it needs to be funnier. Much, much funnier. There are a few good jokes – a game of Musical Chairs which turns out to involve chairs singing, a dog doing spoken-word poetry – but there is too much slack material, and the comedy that does hit the target is often overworked and overextended.
There’s a sense of a rehearsal room where the cast have said “That’s quite funny. It’ll do. On to the next bit”, rather than polishing and refining to turn a rough diamond into something that sparkles in the light. In the words of one audience member, “they need a hard-arsed director to tighten everything and tell them some hard truths about whether something is funny or not.”
Silly Funny Boys might make you chuckle occasionally, but it definitely doesn’t sparkle.
Silly Funny Boys continues at the Wardrobe Theatre until Oct 5. For more info, visit thewardrobetheatre.com/livetheatre/sleeping-trees
Read more: Interview: Sleeping Trees
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
