Pappy's Fun Club: Funergy

Sketch shows are often a dubious prospect at the Fringe. All too often, they turn out to be vanity projects for self-satisfied contingents of recently graduated English or theatre students. But they can also be among the Festival’s most unique delights when they hit the spot.

Pappy’s Fun Club’s Funergy falls squarely into the latter category, despite occasionally suffering from some of the self-indulgent bad habits of the former. The four-strong troupe performs an engagingly varied selection of daft sketches, with a loose plot that sees their unseen and mysterious benefactor, Pappy, send them on a mission to save the planet.

It’s a richly visual show with a school play aesthetic, all clingfilm and bright coloured card. The highlight has to be Matthew Crosby’s superb owl impersonation, which uses nothing more than a cleverly pinned brown jumper and a pair of yellow rubber gloves. Many of the ideas on offer are similarly inventive, particularly those that gently but probingly mock environmental ideals, as when the gang create a neon sign telling people to stop wasting electricity.

Pappy’s quality control isn’t quite fully tuned and a few of the skits misfire. In this performance, there was also an irritating section in which one of the gang decided to improvise with matey in-jokes that meant nothing to the majority of the audience. But Funergy is often a joy, and a considerable cut above the average sketch show fare.