Pappy's Fun Club's World Record Attempt: 200 Sketches in an Hour

It’s roughly 15 minutes into Pappy’s Fun Club’s World Record Attempt and something feels…wrong. The laughs are there, the performances are flawless – then the realisation hits me. It's a rare show in which there’s no grautuitous shock value, no edgy topical issues tackled and no swearing; with the exception of the phrase ‘wank-pants’, this could easily be mistaken for children’s comedy.

Leaving racism, paedophilia and rape jokes aside for the more cynical of heart, the Pappy’s quartet opt instead to indulge in an hour of beautifully innocent sketches that manage to strike a consistent note of silliness without ever crossing into irritating puerility. Amid numerous interlude pieces that ensure the audience’s attention never strays, are longer (but by no means dull) sketches which explore the bigger questions in life, including "what did people do before they knew ears were for hearing?"; "what if the tallest ever man—with the aid of a time machine—fell in love with the smallest ever woman?"; and, in what is unquestionably the most popular segment of the show – "what if you were mates with a dinosaur?"

While all this may sound overly daft or slapstick, the group have found a winning formula by playing one of comedy's most enduring and effective games: if you view the world with a childlike inquisitiveness, you’re bound to come up with material that is fresh, funny and original. The four members of the Fun Club are evidently a cohesive group offstage as well as on, and this bond serves them well as they egg each other onwards to increasing levels of unabashed absurdity. There are frequent ad libs by the foursome, which are lapped up eagerly by the audience – and reflect a group of friends so at ease with their act that sticking rigidly to the script would be boring, for us as well as them.

Tom Parry’s ludicrous conception of a Quaker is a particularly strong highlight and not unlike a pantomime villain (in fact, it’s at this point that the audience has regressed into a childlike state and may as well be crying "Oh yes he did!"). By the time Parry starts galloping around the room, dressed as a pirate and scattering everyone with fake porridge oats, the audience are completely in thrall and the Fun Club can do no wrong.

In a festival where many sketches and routines focus single-mindedly on working everything into a theme—occasionally to award-grabbing success, often to the detriment of their material—Pappy’s is a reminder that comedy need not be anchored to the topical to be funny. Their supposed objective of performing 200 sketches in an hour is flimsy but, with such an effortlessly joyful show, not one audience member seems to care. "I cried with laughter". "My ribs ached"; "My sides ached"; "The chairs shook" – Pappy’s win every gushing reviewer cliché in the book. Rest assured that they are more than deserving of all of them.