The Two Faces of Mitchell & Webb Review

It has been a bit of a busy couple of months, so my reviews have unfortunately been limited… Who am I kidding? I haven’t done any at all! To make it up to you, I wont be doing my regular movie review, as I’ve been given the opportunity to bring you a ‘live stand-up’ review. This stand-up happened to be one the best comedies that I have seen for a long time! I am talking about the Brighton leg of The Two Faces of Mitchell & Webb tour.

When I entered the theatre with a good friend of mine, we were instantly struck by a huge image of the two comedians, David Mitchell and Robert Webb illustrated through what looked to be a rather basic pen and ink drawing. The lights turned low and we were introduced to the duo as they entered from the right hand side of the stage. If you happened to be a fan of the show, you would soon begin to realise that the majority of the sketches were repeats of the recently aired series on BBC 2. Nonetheless the duo were as hilarious as ever, including some of my particular favourite sketches (I would have found the show to be nothing without them) including the all time favourites ‘Number Wang’, ‘Big Talk’ and the fantastically hilarious ‘The Adventures of Sir Digby Chicken Caesar’.

The sketch ‘Big Talk’ is a show like Question Time and presented by Robert Webb in the style of Jeremy Paxman, as the insane presenter in a bid to overcome the world’s issues with use of the boffins, (which included David Mitchell) supposedly three of the most brilliant minds around. The best thing about this sketch was that it has the potential to work in a ‘live’ environment, so that’s what they did. When Robert entered the audience, he began to have us throw questions at the boffins, and the audience obliged by asking a bizarre array of questions, the one that stuck in my mind was ‘In a fight between a muscle and a prawn, who would win?’.

Number Wang uses its element of confusion as the punch line for the sketch itself. Presented as a normal everyday run-of-the-mill game show, the contenders are asked to say a number, any number, and if by some unusual circumstance the number was correct, Robert would say ‘that’s number wang’, or negative circumstance ‘that’s not number wang’. This may sound strange and is one of those sketches you need to see to understand.

And now I had to save the best to last, my personal favourite ‘The Adventures of Sir Digby Chicken Caesar’, a delusional pair of homeless crazies believing their lives are of real significance, Robert Webb as ‘Sir Digby Chicken Caesar’ and David Mitchell as ‘Ginger’. It began as a pursuit from the back of the theatre with the theme tune in the background. That’s when I started laughing and literally didn’t stop until the sketch ended! The only disappointment was that the pair did not reappear for the rest of the show.

When it ended, I went to the pub with my friend to reminisce of the events of the show, which we both believed was absolutely fantastic. I personally think it was one of the best shows I have been privileged to witness. Nice one guys.

As an extra note, after we both departed the pub, I decided to go around the back of theatre to shorten the length of my journey home, and who should I meet around the back? None other than the two men themselves, Robert Webb and David Mitchell. WOW!! So me being me, I had to make their acquaintance!

I spoke to Robert first, and being a bit star struck, said the only two things I could think of was to tell him ‘Hi there I’m Marc, just wanted to say fantastic show, really enjoyed it and was just wondering when series 4 of Peep Show was coming out?’ He said either end of January or February this year (or maybe next year, I was somewhat amazed to be in this position so I may have misinterpreted his reply!), I shook his hand and left to go and talk to David, who was entertaining someone else at the time. I waited, eventually got his attention, and said ‘fantastic show loved every bit of it’ shook his hand and left. I instantly phoned my friend and told her what had just transpired, and was responded to with the answer ‘YOU LUCKY B*****D’, which I happened to agree with!

Anyway thanks for reading and having me drivel on. If you ever get the chance to see these two comedy geniuses, don’t hesitate, you won’t be disappointed!

Pony Boy Reviews