★★★★★
Five Stars
Last night at the Burton Taylor studio I was lucky enough to encounter that rare Oxford beast of genuinely funny student comedy. This night of darkly surreal humor in a tight, intimate setting left me thinking this is probably not the last we’ll see of the Buttless Chaps.
Featuring quick witted, acerbic comedy writing from Will Hislop and Barney Fishwick, and executed with acute timing and panache by Kieran Ahern, Barney Iley and Phoebe James, this is comedy that deliberately steers away from the trap of self-reverential , psuedo-intellectual, conspicuously ‘Oxford’ kind of humor that so many comedy acts here can fall into. Not bad for an effort that stemmed from “me and Will begging for attention at the family Sunday meal”.
The writing duo name Leslie Nielson, Harry & Paul and the Blues Brothers as influences, but are keen to play down any associations between established comedy acts and last nights performance, instead describing their mantra as “throw shit at the audience and see what sticks”. It’s clearly a little more thought out than that though; opening musical number Take Me Back, Please and future classic Henry VIII share DNA with kiwi comedians Flight Of the Concords, and any League of Gentlemen fans in the audience will see parallel humor in Hitchcock. Shampoo had me in stiches over some of the best puns I’ve heard since I was about twelve, and the difficulties of switching products from “mustard gas to mustard”.
The Buttless Chaps themselves were hesitant to identify any particular targets in their comedy crosshairs but religion and Americans get subjected to comic humiliation the most, particularly in Bishop in Confessional, E! fashion interview and Smart Guy. The best example of this being the suggestion that you can’t get wi-fi in churches because they don’t want to compete with “an invisible skill set that actually works”. But far and away the most hilarious sketch of the night is the ambiguously titled Porn which, as the pair later point out to me, is largely funny because “you know people in the audience are thinking ‘shit…I’ve watched that once today already!'” At this point I looked sheepishly into my pint glass.
For a small, previously unheard of student comedy production to sell out on its first run is testament to the quality of writing and execution on display. This success is cherry-topped by their selection by the Oxford Revue to travel with them to this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival. However, I think The Buttless Chaps should consider changing the name of their show in the meantime – from Some Funny to Very, Very, Very Funny.
