The Sunday Defensive are Phil Gilbert and Jacob Edwards two bespectacled young Englishmen presenting their off-the-wall sketch show. They play a pair of geeky, oddball friends who decide to marry one another for financial gain.
This somewhat flimsy premise leads to an hour of meandering, tangent-filled nonsense, as they invite their girlfriends to be bridesmaids, tell their dads, cement their friendship with short vignettes about why cats will eventually eat us all, and perform a free-form jazz solo on the triangle.
The whole thing is gibberish, only very vaguely held together by the plot, but it’s likeable and the two comics have a sharp imagination.
Gilbert and Edwards say they met in a taxi on the way to A&E, in 2002, and have since formed a comedy partnership that has seen them gain acting roles and writing credits for Jimmy Carr, Peep Show and The IT Crowd.
I found the Sunday Defensive to be a hit-and-miss affair, though with more hits than misses. The two lads have the right attitude to The Fringe they’ve clearly practised their show, but they’re also relaxed and are having fun up there.
As part of one sketch, Edwards eats an entire block of cheese straight from the packet. Bear in mind they’re performing most days for almost a month, and there’s every possibility he’ll have to be lifted from the tiny cabin they perform in by crane come the end of August.The Sunday Defensive: Further Complications is on at the Pleasance Courtyard at 4.45pm until August 29 (not August 16).