“If you don’t like excellent, silly sketch comedy, you will hate this”
Having recently enjoyed a sold-out run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney are obviously now in over $3000 worth of debt. I can only wish them luck because I’m certain they’re about to have another sold-out week in Soho, and who knows how much that’s going to set them back.
This is silly sketch comedy at its absolute finest. Scenes range from a super annoying ghost being misidentified as a dead parent, to Nick hijacking a Western sketch to try and get Brian to make out with him. It’s all tied together with an incredibly absurd premise that Nick and his fiancé decided to remain celibate until their marriage which, having been postponed due to covid, has lasted over two years- and masturbation is obviously considered cheating. So Nick is a little bit tense, as you might imagine.
It’s amazing how much chaos they manage to create with so few props, and by the end, it feels like the stage should be covered with multiple discarded costumes, a bunch of undigested food, and a lot of unidentifiable puddles. But aside from a leaning keyboard and a few tic-tacs, it’s just Kocher and McElhaney doing what they do best and being absolutely ridiculous.
The best and worst joke of the evening has to be one of them joining the mile-high club on 9/11- trust me, it works. Obviously they’re unafraid to break any social boundary necessary if it can be funny, and where others would leave an audience awkward and uncomfortable, Britanick has us curling up in pained laughter. With writing credits including It’s Always Sunny, and SNL, it should be no surprise.
If you don’t like excellent, silly sketch comedy, you will hate this. Otherwise everyone should go. They’re about to smash the UK scene, and this might be the last chance to see them in such an intimate venue.
Reviewed on 27th February 2023
by Miriam Sallon
Photography by Sela Shiloni
Catch BriTANicK at Soho Theatre until 4th March then at Brighton Komeida on the 5th March and Manchester Canvas on 6th March
