Review: Laser Kiwi: Rise Of The Olive

An utterly distinctive yet slightly inexplicable act, Laser Kiwi stretch, span and over-extend a little awkwardly between the ta-da spectacle of circus and the often self-deprecating and knockabout humour of sketch comedy. Gifted acrobat Imogen Stone and juggling, balancing brothers Degge and Zane Jarvie are a likeable trio who have plotted their carefully ordered, routine-by-routine hour in an accompanying programme. And they bring fun, frivolity and a dash of audience participation to their varied performance. Still, Rise of the Olive is a curate's egg of a return to the festival for the New Zealanders, it's salty snack theme echoing the divisive nature of the cocktail stick staple.

For a start, there's probably a few too few circus tricks and too many so-so, throwaways sketches, not least when Stone is mesmerising spinning herself up and down the rope as Degge plays deliberately daft hip hop hype samples. Zane completes an impressive feat of co-ordination with a Martini glass balanced on his forehead. But only after multiple fails and Degge's distracting running commentary – is he fluffing the attempt for comic effect? Elsewhere, the act of handing out 3D glasses beforehand can only briefly titillate but ultimately disappoint when it grows apparent that they're just a lot of window dressing for essentially one solid joke. Weirdly too, the odd swearword aside, the trio would be a perfectly palatable family act, were it not for a reasonably amusing, progressive yet really rather edgy skit on appropriate modern sexual couplings which seems to come out of absolutely nowhere.