Idiots of Ants

Even on a rainy mid-week evening, 2009 Comedy Award nominees Idiots of Ants, now in their fourth year at the Fringe, have managed to fill nearly every seat in this sizeable Pleasance Courtyard space. Their new offering has all the hallmarks of the sketch group's past shows: strong red branding, high-quality sets, a projector screen at the back for flashy graphics. But despite these usual stylistic stamps—including one obligatory joke about Elliott Tiney's appropriate name (he's short, geddit?)—this fun hour feels more like a mature outing in pace and structure, if not in tone.

As always, they deliver a smart, slick set that fuses clever humour with juvenile antics, assuring the crowd that they haven't let themselves in for any "postmodern, self-referential, Stewart Lee shit". Set in a boys' flat that comes complete with an audience they have to entertain, the well-framed format favours a few longer, more developed sketches than rapid fire skits, and a sock puppet orgy and real-life game of hangman go down particularly well.

The foursome feed off each other's comic talents and deliver an artfully timed, precisely scripted performance. Yet it's only when things start to unravel that Idiots of Ants dazzle, as glitches are handled with spontaneous brilliance. It's not surprising: their show is so dependent on technical elements that things must go wrong all the time and this only adds to the lively atmosphere. A little less flash and a bit more of this instant chaos would likely give them the edge over their competition when the awards judges come calling.