Review: Hear Hear

Hear Hear is hilarious, from start to finish.

The moments where the audience wasn’t laughing were few and far between. Every single sketch had been carefully thought through, and wonderfully carried out. Hear Hear is full of surreal comedy, and brilliant slapstick; there were no cringe-worthy moments, and not a single joke throughout the show fell flat. When the show was over, I wanted to continue seeing more from all of them. I actually heard groans of disappointment when the actors came out to bow.

Some thought has obviously gone into the order of the sketches and even the way some of the performers arrived on stage was funny. The sketches jumped from one to another without pause, leading to an ingenious tour-de-force of comedy genius.

Hear Hear is definitely not your ordinary Cambridge sketch show that consists of the same old faces you will see in every sketch show at the Corpus Playroom. Seeing some new faces was not only refreshing, but brought whole new levels of humour that have been lacking to date. This cast form a comedy powerhouse; they’re all individually funny and they are exceedingly hilarious together.

Hear Hear was a triumph of slapstick, and arguably the best sketch show in some time.

Rosanna Suppa is a slapstick genius. The audience reacted enthusiastically to every single one of her exaggerated gestures, and over-the-top characters. One of the best sketches of the night was a sketch in which she was alone on stage, just moving without saying a word, with an epic background music, and it was absolutely hysterical.

Kyle Turakhia filled the room with his charisma every time he was on stage. Turakhia is an energetic, dynamic and very likeable comedian, and guaranteed to make you laugh at every sketch he is in.

Laura Inge is effortlessly funny. The audience was laughing uncontrollably to every single thing about her. Inge could make you laugh just by raising an eyebrow – every single one of her facial expressions was priceless.

Zak Ghazi-Torbati is possibly one of the funniest performers I have seen in Cambridge. Ever. His shameless confidence and playful tone made the delivery of each line funnier than the next.  The sketch with the air hostess still has me laughing this morning, it was the standout highlight of the show and arguably worthy of a whole run of its own.

Kate Reid brought balance to the show with some less extreme performances, both stabilising and cutting under the extravagant slapstick. Reid maintained a straight face throughout; her delivery was shameless, confident, and sharp.

The show was written by Reid, Suppa, and Turakhia. They absolutely need to keep working together because what they are doing is working. The material was completely original with no obvious jokes, and utterly brilliant. ‘Hear Hear’ was dynamic, extremely entertaining, and full of wonderful punchlines.

79 % – a resounding and triumphant 1st. Almost – but not quite – a star.