We're Bewitched By This Filthy Comedy Duo

Norris and Parker: Burn the Witch, Soho Theatre ★★★★☆

Will Noble
By Will Noble Last edited 61 months ago

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We're Bewitched By This Filthy Comedy Duo Norris and Parker: Burn the Witch, Soho Theatre 4
Norris and Parker. And in that order too.

Do Norris and Parker only come out at night? Last time we saw them it was past our bedtime, in a dank Edinburgh room, where they bewitched a half-cut audience as pink-bobbed feminazis. At Soho Theatre, they materialise at 10pm — teutonic techno witches pumping phallic broomsticks and, in no uncertain terms, demanding the audience's sperm.

Don't worry though, it gets far more libidinous. A stretched out gothic yarn sees Emily Bronte career into League of Gentlemen, as their characters scale the mucky heights of Phallus Ridge. It's little more than an excuse for the leotarded duo to crank out comedy wigs, eerie dummies, songs about voodoo pussies, and intensely funny one-liners: "I say he made love to me in the sea, it was more like pumping me full of salty water...". They often wind up snorting with laughter themselves, and who can blame them.

The continued use of a deadpan keyboard player (he's different from the one before — is it a Spinal Tap drummer thing?) anchors the madness of this whole sick panto — or at least holds it down while it kicks and screams.

If you put this dissipated pair on some perky primetime BBC spot with Russell Howard, they'd probably liquefy into a putrid puddle, like the Wicked Witch of the West. They're all the better for that.

Norris and Parker: Burn the Witch, Soho Theatre. Tickets from £16.50, until 23 February

Last Updated 21 February 2019