Review: Cardinal Burns at Bristol Comedy Garden

Cardinal Burns are professional comedians at the top of their game.

Review: Cardinal Burns/Tony Law

Cardinal Burns are an incredible force on stage, wielding their talent for acting and characterisation alongside well-scripted lazy human interaction. Focusing on hypocrisy, power struggles and the complexities of male relationships and sexuality, it's simple sketch comedy at its best.

Cardinal Burns delve into the realms of ridiculousness

Cardinal Burns are pushing sketch comedy into the realms of the absurd whilst staying true to careful, truthful and strikingly accurate observations of human behaviour.

New comedy Rovers sees the reunion of Royle Family members Craig Cash and Sue Johnston. Cash stars in the role of Pete Moat a die-hard fan of non-league football team Redbridge Rovers and a man who is part of a motley crew of supporters who huddle together in the team's clubhouse. Among them is his best friend Tel (Steve Spiers) who recently came out as gay and now Pete has to share him with super-stylish boyfriend Mel (Seb Cardinal). Then there's twin brothers Bruce and Lee (writers David Earl and Joe Wilkinson) who enjoy winding Pete up and the brilliant Ronnie (Mark Silcox) who runs Redbridge Rovers' very meagre club shop. Overseeing everything is Doreen (Johnston) the queen of the clubhouse who offers up pints alongside salubrious gossip about the team's captain. As well as playing Pete, Cash also serves as director as he has done on previous Sky sitcoms After Hours and The Cafe with Rovers sharing the gentle vibe that both of those comedies offered. Rovers is particularly reminiscent of The Cafe as it is set almost exclusively in one venue and features a variety of colourful characters having fairly mundane conversations with one another. Earl and Wilkinson's script is extremely anecdotal and at times is too low-key for its own good. I feel where it works the most is when the characters are discussing their love of the football team and what it would be like to get to the heady heights of the Evo-Stick Premier League. The small scale nature of the club shop was also a nice little running gag which was aided by Silcox's performance as the deadpan Ronnie. I do feel it's too early to judge whether Rovers will be a success or a failure especially seeing as Earl and Wilkinson had to introduce a cavalcade of characters in one fell swoop. But although there were some funny moments nestled within Rovers I have to say that there wasn't really one character who I wanted to root for. Whilst I'm assuming that Pete is meant to be the character we sympathise with his jealousy towards Mel coupled with his astounding stupidity meant that he was hard to warm to. It also didn't help that Craig Cash was essentially playing the same character we've seen him portray in both The Royle Family and Early Doors. In fact everyone from Johnston to Wilkinson to Spiers was playing a similar version of characters we've seen them play in superior shows which made Rovers feel a little low rent. So, while it's not without its charm, I feel Rovers is destined to nestle in the second division of British sitcoms and will never be promoted to the premier league.

The comic duo breathing new life into the sketch format

The bizarre creations of Seb Cardinal and Dustin Demri-Burns have earned them cult status; now they're embarking on their first UK tour.

A busy week for Alfie, who has to simultaneously attend Miss Gulliver's book group, pupil Mitchell's leaving do, and headmaster Fraser's live-action roleplay night (while dressed as a hobbit). Boisterous as ever then, but there's a sense that Bad Education is training its sights beyond schoolyard smut in its third series, with some gentle commentary on Michael Gove's school reforms ("He wants to get the kids to write with quills," reports Fraser), and strong guest turns from Seb Cardinal and Dustin Demri-Burns as a pair of orcs.

Cardinal Burns make a welcome return to the Fringe

Seb Cardinal and Dustin Demri-Burns, having garnered telly success, are coming back to the live comedy stage.

Radio Times review

Seb Cardinal and Dustin Demri-Burns wrote a sketch for this series where they played two horror writers, shut up in a room to finish a screenplay, who end up killing each other. They rejected it in the end but, watching this apocalyptic series-closing double bill, you can see where the idea came from. Episode five boasts a tale of festival-going gone wrong that could be by Shearsmith & Pemberton, while the finale gives a couple of long-running characters an icky end.

There are still great little gags popping up here and there, though. Look out for the ultimate "man sneaks away from a one-night stand" sketch.

Cardinal Burns psychoanalyse each other

Channel 4's hit sketch comedy duo Seb Cardinal and Dustin Demri-Burns get on the couch to psychoanalyse each other

Radio Times review

Dustin Demri-Burns spends an almost uncomfortable amount of time as playfully stereotypical foreign characters as telly's most confident sketch duo continue swaggering about like the rudest kids in school. He's Le Rat, the French street artist who comes to Hadley Wood to visit his British counterpart Banksy ("Well, you've certainly brought the weather with you. Entrez, entrez!") but turns out to be a touch too anarchic for our man's taste.

That's a longform sketch that fulfils Cardinal Burn's brief of delivering miniature sitcoms - as does Demri-Burns' wicked turn as a fake karate sensei who just wants his young charge (Seb Cardinal, with fat suit and pre-pubescent screech) to do up his house. The performance of the night, though, comes from Cardinal, reimagining Daniel Day-Lewis as a gossiping ninny.