Theatre Review: “I’m Beating a Dead Horse!”

Note: This review was posted on the KC Stage review system.

“Bottoms Up Sketch Comedy Show”, written, directed, and produced by Bottoms Up Sketch Comedy (part of the KC Fringe Festival). First produced 2011. (Seen July 29, 2011.)

In the introduction to the Bottoms Up Sketch Comedy Show, the team of people that make up the troupe indicate that this is the ‘best of’ their material.

While some of it was definitely good humor, the hour of comedy as a whole was a mixed bag.

It started with a bit where they explain they are not a burlesque company and there will be no boobs, a good and funny start to the evening. It then led into what I thought was the funniest bit of the evening, an audition for the GPS voice by the man who is behind the Speak & Spell. The ‘pizza as birth’ and the coffee superpower one were also strong comedy bits.

The group was obviously having a lot of fun, which somewhat made up for the bits that didn’t work (the turtle conversation post coitus was probably the weakest in my opinion), and they obviously had a ton of fun with sound design, as the sketch involving the new medical option “Aleak” was followed by the song “Under Pressure” by Queen.

Some of the bits, like the horror movie/Who’s On First mashup, have been done before (although I did give a groaner of a laugh at the tag), but the item that ended up being a running joke — while I knew what was coming the third time around, I still had to laugh in spite of myself.

This was no Saturday Night Live during its good years, but it was better than Saturday Night Live during its bad years. Let’s hope Bottoms Up grows from here, and just keeps getting better — it’s a good start.

The 2011 KC Fringe Festival is over, but Bottoms Up is, according to their Fringe bio, a Kansas City based sketch comedy show, and is on Facebook.

Read all of my Fringe reviews here.