The Past ★★★★

Renowned novelist William Faulkner once wrote: “The Past is never dead. It’s not even past.” But he’s dead, so what does he know?

It seems that the past is never dead for Fishing4Chips. Not content with creating two full-length historical comedy shows – Burning Down The Horse and It’s Gonna Blow – writers and performers Sean Wareing and Freddie Walker can’t let go of the past as fertile material for their shows. This time, rather than a single event, such as the Trojan Horse or Mount Vesuvius erupting, they have created a sketch show, The Past, that encompasses incidents from the evolution myth to the present.

Sketch shows have an inherent risk to them in a way that long-form shows do not. In a comedy play, characters are introduced once, the world is established, and off it goes. With sketches, you are introduced to new characters every time and the world is reset at each ending. The challenge is how to maintain momentum. Wareing and Walker do this not by limiting the amount of skits but by increasing them. By our count, they cram 27 sketches into an hour – yes, that’s around 2 minutes per sketch. The genius of this is that if you aren’t particularly keen on one vignette, it’ll be replaced by another in quick succession.

There is no faffing around with wigs, costume changes, or elaborate props. The show simply has a wooden crate (possibly salvaged from ancient Greece, IYKYK) as set, and the two performers, attired in fetching Victorian men’s bathing costumes, and that’s it. What is saved in budget is spent in energy. Both Sean and Freddie are attractive, twinkly performers who throw themselves wholeheartedly into each scenario with gusto. From the building of the pyramids to a new production of Romeo and Juliet, from Madame Tussaud’s latest creation to an unexpected historical twist on Simon Says, the jokes and croquis come fast and funny. The Past has an impressively high hit rate for a sketch show.

They create an atmosphere where members of the audience are called to participate, and all do so willingly. Well, almost all. One audience member appeared to be rather too school for school to enter into the spirit of the show, earning Freddie’s gentle “That’s the best we are going to get out of him” and Sean’s withering faux-side eye. Wareing and Walker’s vibe is fun, silly, self-deprecating. There is no punching down in their humour. Their amiable stage presence is infectious, and audiences leave energised and laughing.

Fans of their shows will notice some signature motifs present and correct in The Past:

Voting – they love a vote. It’s almost as if the concept of democracy is an itch they gotta scratch.

Puns – get ready to groan, especially at the end of one of the Egyptian routines.

Sean getting wet – it’s not for The Recs to question why but if you leave a F4C show and Sean isn’t soaked, demand your money back.

A reworking of a Christmas-adjacent song, an unanticipated appearance of a young Philip Larkin, a caveman doing standup comedy with a killer punchline, and the reverse perspective of a beloved musical are all hilarious highlights. There’s a truly outstanding visual gag featuring a far-from-ubiquitous character from children’s fiction that encapsulates the warm, silly humour of Wareing and Walker.

As Jane Austen (also still dead) wrote in Pride and Prejudice: “Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.” Get a ticket for this terrific hour of sketch comedy, and The Past will definitely give you pleasure.