Some of the Fringe Best I think!

Tim and I went to 2 fabulous Fringe Festival comedy shows this past week!!!

The first, Topping and Butch, were a couple of gay men doing some caberet mixed with political commentary -- it was awesome!! Despite the very cramped seating, they had as laughing out loud and singing along with outrageous songs -- poking fun at terrorists and people who live in council houses! "Never mind" (a song) was my favourite part!

The next night, because we had SO much fun, we decided to take the advice of some friends and see Pam Ann -- I think we laughed louder and harder, OH MY GOD. She was fucking hysterical. Her routine centered around airplane travel and she wasted no time ripping on flight attendants, Easy Jet and economy class passengers!! I'd see her again.

The Review will do them more justice than I.

Description
Two years of taking the Fringe by storm with their saucy satirical songs and outrageous outfits have done nothing to soften the biting wit of award-winning comedy duo Topping & Butch.

Review
Were there a prize for the best title on the Fringe, this show would surely take it. It's indicative of the depraved, filthy double entendres of which this duo are capable at their best, or worst
Despite the leather S&M get-up and the portentous doom-inspiring music that heralds their arrival, this is suggestive comedy at its most coy-innocent. Their genuinely warm banter and affectionate teasing ensures that everything is perfectly safe.

A little too safe for many tastes, though. What Topping & Butch serve up is the most traditional kind of intimate cabaret revue. It's as if the past 40 years of comedy never happened.
Their signature tune, Never Mind, is the most obvious manifestation of this. Bang up-to-date topical, new verses are added almost daily to stay abreast of breaking events, but the style is pure Ned Sherrin. Although they may be industrious, they are hardly cutting edge – but as the song goes, Never Mind.

They are unashamed of being populist, though, and revel in it. Only they could have an irony-free Sale Of The Century style fanfare and get away with it. They clearly love the stage, and that good feeling easily diffuses out to the audience.

Topping – whose eyebrows must be up for a double act award on their own – is the older, avuncular one. (Well, if you had an uncle with a penchant for kinky red kilts). It's he who best handles the double entendres, his supposed bass-voiced gravitas making them all the more naughty, in the same way Humphrey Lyttleton does on I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.

Butch is more playful and more obviously cheeky, a slight counterpoint to Topping's nominally more grown-up persona – and it's their relationship, and boundless energy, that gets them over the wobblier moments.

It's unlikely their old-style act is ever going to appeal to the comedy purist; but the fact a couple in the front row came along to this – their seventh Topping and Butch show - wearing home-made in tribute to the duo suggest they're doing something right.


PAM ANN

Direct from a sell-out month-long season at London's Bloomsbury Theatre, ten sold out weeks at The Soho Theatre and an arena tour with Cher, the infamous trolley-dolley Pam Ann is now extending her routes across the UK.

This uniformed vixen is a cunning mixture of social satire and larger than life inter-continental lampoonery. She pokes fun at economy, dishes dirt on other airlines, and terrorises us with safety demos.

When tickets for her recent London season went on sale the queues outside the venue could be seen by jumbos heading for Heathrow. In the last year she has sold out venues from Sydney to New York and redefined the term "Jet Set" when Elton John booked her as the inflight entertainment on his private jet to Venice for David Furnish's 40th birthday party. She has also appeared with Anne Robinson on BBC1's The Weakest Link Celebrity Special.

Are you sure you ordered vegetarian when you booked your ticket?

PAM ANN AIRLINES - WORLD'S MOST EXPERIENCED AIRLINE - "The fact is we don't make the same mistake more than three times".