Review: GREAT BRITISH MYSTERIES?, Soho Theatre

Will Close and Rose Robinson explore monsters, myths, and Scotland in their exhilarating Great British Mysteries?. Directed by Joseph Hancock and following a sold-out run in Edinburgh back in 2017, the show is presented as a live-action mockumentary. Video projections aid the performers, who are righteously and rather pleasantly exasperating.

Olive Bacon (Robinson) and Dr. Teddy Tyrell (Close) take the audience through a series of illogical "mysteries" and end up making a sensational and groundbreaking discovery. The characters are, delightfully, everything one should expect from a play of this genre. They're bumbling and irreverent, and even the casual corpsing becomes the source of the crowd's belly-laughs.

Their strength relies in flawless chemistry and perfect comedic timing, but their humour per se isn't revolutionary; the alter egos work like clockwork and balance each other out making fun of the material with ridiculous seriousness.

Unpretentious in its pretentiousness, Great British Mysteries? is simple entertainment with no agenda. Close and Robinson turn cheap comedy and an oversold subject into a hilarious and entertaining night out. A little obnoxious and a little too mundane at times, the two-hander does exactly what it says on the tin with added weirdness and eccentricity.

With no veiled misogyny and no offensive undertones (except for poor Noel Edmonds, he might have something to say...) Hancock directs a harmless comedy that is genuinely silly.

Great British Mysteries? runs at Soho Theatre until 19 May.

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