Sammy J and Randy: Ricketts Lane

Scottish audiences first met Randy, a delightfully foul-mouthed and sex-obsessed puppet, in the 2008 Edinburgh hit Sammy J and the Forest of Dreams. Now the purple-faced foam lech and his Aussie comedian co-star are finally back – with Randy, operated and voiced by talented puppeteer Heath McIvor, rightly given equal billing in this blast of a musical.

Ricketts Lane refers to the street where the tempestuous duo live when all goes awry. Sammy is a struggling tax lawyer who is desperate to make a name for himself with a multi-million dollar fraud case. When the trail of evidence leads back to housemate Randy he’s forced to prosecute and their friendship is inevitably strained as court and jail time beckon.

Highlights are numerous and the audience barely has time to recover from each masterful comic setpiece before the next is upon them – all tied together by some perfectly contrived running jokes (you’ll never pronounce "Papua New Guinea" correctly again). The songs are all worthy of Disney, notwithstanding their resolutely R-rated lyrics, while several sketches are perfectly constructed, fully realised comic vignettes in their own right.

There are moments which actually elicit gasps – in particular an ingenious sight gag at the start of a court scene which had many audience members rubbing their eyes in disbelief.

It’s all terribly silly of course, with an occasional over-reliance on swearing to provide the chuckles, but Ricketts Lane is destined to be the highlight of many a Fringe schedule this August.