Sketch troupes either die relatively early in their careers - brought down by the same financial and ego pressures that do for bands - or get on telly and live long enough to make an actual living out of the whole thing.
Sheeps, somewhat impressively, have done neither. The trio have wracked up some serious acclaim over the years, and their 2022 retrospective ‘Ten Years, Ten Laughs’ was a sublime reminder of that. And individually members Daran Johnson, Al Roberts and Liam Williams have all done pretty well with other projects - the fact they’re clearly not betting everything on Sheeps career-wise does probably feel quite important.
Nonetheless, a late-thirties sketch trio who have never made it to telly returning with their first new show in six years is an unusual happening on the Fringe and it’s a shame so few of the peers have had this sort of longevity because really Sheeps are pretty damn great still.
‘The Giggle Bunch’ opens with a sketch about a reactionary father horrified because he’s heard Superman is gay in some comic or other; it’s pretty funny on its own terms but it’s the twist Sheeps put on it that reminds you of what they’re about, as the scene unexpectedly keeps running after the dad leaves, mutating unexpectedly. Throughout the hour some skits are inevitably funnier than others, but all are marked by a dizzyingly clever deconstruction of our expectations, from one about Lara Croft getting out into the dating world to the sublime closer about AI now writing the group’s skits.
Possibly it doesn’t bode well for me as a comedy critic that I couldn’t tell how earnest the trio’s mid-set assertion that (spoiler alert I guess) this will be their last show is. If this is the end, they’ll have gone out in good form, playing to full houses. But even if an indefinite hiatus looms, don’t write off doing another show in your forties or fifties, lads. I’ll keep a candle lit..