FestBuzz

What: Super­clump fea­tur­ing  Henry Paker, Henry Widdicombe,Sian Har­ries, Mike Woz­niak, Elis James, Ben Par­tridge, Tom Craine, Josh Wid­di­combe, and Nat Luurt­sema.
Where: The GRV
When: 2.40pm, until Sun­day 30 August
How Much: £5

In 140 char­ac­ters or less: “If they can just get the tim­ing as fast as a speed­ing bul­let Super­clump will become a sketch group of steel.”

I’m not sure how many peo­ple are in Super­clump. I could find out but I pre­fer to be hap­pily daz­zled and mys­ti­fied by the array of char­ac­ters this large and enthu­si­as­tic cast play.

This is a bizarre sketch show, with some Big Train-ish moments and lash­ings of stu­pid dances. It holds together well, but the pac­ing some­times loses its way, leav­ing the audi­ence unsure when to applaud. Some sketches were just too long (a bril­liant stand off between two macho lothar­ios loses it’s way try­ing to get to a pun) and oth­ers just too short (the annoy­ing Red Rid­ing Hood and her short tem­pered grandmother).

The act­ing for the most part is pretty strong: Mike Woz­niak is absolutely on top form, and he clearly leads the group on stage. Tom Craine and Nat Luurt­sema get some of the best lines, but it’s a real team effort over­all and there’s some­thing delight­ful about watch­ing sketches where you’re never sure quite how many more peo­ple will end up on stage.

The team are quite suc­cess­ful in get­ting all their per­son­al­i­ties across, despite play­ing a vari­ety of char­ac­ters with­out break­ing the fourth wall par­tic­u­larly often, though it was a charm­ing and reveal­ing moment to see Craine and Elis James corps­ing in the Aesop sketch. It’s clear there is a cen­tral drive to the sense of humour which makes Super­clump great, and with such a large cast they could have eas­ily lost their way with this.

In order to really get the most out of this show, watch out for when sketches take a darker turn: a dance turns bizarrely vio­lent, chil­dren play some very odd games, and just wait until you find out what’s in the party bags…

There are def­i­nitely a few dud moments they could scrap in this show, and it suf­fers mildly from the post-lunch sleepy slot, but when Super­clump shine they really dazzle.

Fes­t­buzz Rating:

Words: Elise Bramich