Frisky and Mannish: Pop Centre Plus

Times are tough and unemployment is high, but Frisky and Mannish are here to help you make your career in pop music. You’ll need an up-to-date CV and great hair.

The parodying pair’s repertoire has more pop music mish-mash than an iPod on shuffle and, as such, the show assumes a level of familiarity with current charting music. Roughly speaking, you need the encyclopaedic knowledge of an average tweenage girl/Fest reviewer. Those who can’t recite the lyrics to Katy Perry's 'Firework' might be left bewildered, but it’s enough to leave their target audience squealing.

The duo’s main gimmick is transferring singers or songs into a different style. While this shows off their versatility and sometimes creates intriguing hybrids, often they don’t quite hit the mark. For instance, jokes about Madonna’s stylistic transformations have long since become cliché, and the retrospective presented here is neither particularly dead-on nor all that cutting.

Nonetheless, Laura Corcoran and Matthew Jones are consummate performers, experts at working a crowd. The audience participation, which could easily be awkward and pointless, is powered through on the force of their personalities. Indeed, there is the feeling the show must go on, at any cost. Well produced and relentlessly hi-NRG, they never let the tempo slip, even if this can make things slightly impersonal.

Still, that’s beside the point. Gleefully superficial, this is the best kind of style over substance. No one in the audience is going to end up a pop star, but Frisky and Mannish are already there.