A Betrayal of Penguins: Endangered for a Reason

The premise, we are told, is simple: A Betrayal of Penguins will take three disparate plot lines and, over the course of an hour of sketch comedy, manoeuvre them hilariously towards some sort of unity.

The reality, however, is somewhat different: be it in the lousily constructed characters, wafer-thin plotlines or acting so hammy you could make a sandwich with it, A Betrayal of Penguins: Endangered for a Reason forms a fairly shoddy hour. This might be partly attributed to the fact that the threesome’s main aim for their Fringe run appears to be to make each other corpse. And, in this sense they aren’t entirely unsuccessful – indeed, so well do they succeed here that it actually engenders some of the shows biggest laughs. It is a poisoned chalice, though. When the chaotic asides—asides which, on their own, lend the show a rather studenty, self-indulgent feel—prove much more enjoyable then the actual material, one can’t help but feel there are some chasms being papered over.

The trio do manage some nice moments of comedy (“sorry I’m late; people kept getting hit by the car I was driving”). Ostensibly, though, what you are paying for here is to watch three pals dick about on stage. To be fair to them, there’s more humour to squeezed out of that than one might expect. But dicking about does not a Fringe show make – well, not a good one at least.