Idiots of Ants

Idiots of Ants, according to the team, is an appropriation of the French, 'l'idiot savant': the knowing fool. It's a bold decision - imbuing one's show at its most basic level with a snippet of trendy Euro pseudo-intellectualism. Bold in that it raises expectations for a payoff involving sustained bouts of cerebral humour. Bold because, for the knowing fool, funny just isn't going to be funny enough. Unfortunately it's a bit too bold for Idiots of Ants whose skits fall just short of the hype.

There's an attempt, right from the start, at clever literary deflation. The slightly surreal scene on the theme of 'stop all the clocks' (written, apparently, by Hugh Grant) works well, but goes on a bit too long after the punchlines have been dealt. Dealt several times, in fact. The 'how to announce a bereavement both awkwardly and comically' routine has been done before by the Fast Show fellows for whom, it is clear, Idiots of Ants have a lot of affection. That's not to deny that the Idiots can produce the goods - the veritable anthill of their comedic pursuits. A series of self-parodying sketches based on gender stereotypes is superb. Taking potentially drab material, the team manage to give a thorough battering to the expectations of masculinity and femininity using the sketch show format to its full potential. There's also a corresponding jibe at what might be termed, Moira-Stewartness - the phenomenon of being Moira Stewart. You had to be there, perhaps.

It's rare that Idiots of Ants deal in the currency of wholly original situations. But, frequently, they are able to manoeuvre some interesting left field turns from these start points. But if one opts for the trendy name, the shirts and black pencil ties, the stylised set, then the act really needs to be impenetrably cerebral. Corpsing onstage doesn't help the image. Although it was a bit funny.