Hatty and Tony Rub it Better @ Meadow Bar Free Fringe 2009

It’s fair to say now I have seen a good few shows, most good, few have been bad (being so honest here) so what was I looking from from Hatty and Tony Rub it Better. Great things really! I met Hatty (as you do) whilst she was having the biggest burger in the world and got talking about her show and I said I would come as it sounded good.

Well to cut a long story short I kept missing the show but finally got down there today and I will admit here now I have never cried with laughter before to day. ‘Rub it better’ is a cross between a stand up act and a sketch show with more emphasis on the sketch shop format. This seems to be a big thing this year with a wide variety of acts trying their hand at the sketch show format and this has to be the hardest form of live comedy.

Some acts we have seen have been good but Hatty and Tony add something fresh and real to the format. After some gentle banter between the two the show got started (there are some Italians who are making a racket and do so throughout the whole show but seem to get some of the jokes and punch lines and their teacher gives them a sip of his beer). After this Tony runs off and Hatty does a little bit of stand up, explaining her ‘old persons dress sense’ and being brought up by old people. This part of the show comes across really sweet and (in hindsight) sets up the rest of her show pretty well. Hatty comes across really sweet, warm, and genuine and as the show gets on and the Italians calm down a touch she really gets into the swing of it.

Over the the hour Tony would come on as an un-homophobic man and a ‘Newage father’, at which Tony really came into his own working so well with the audience and Hatty would come on as an auditionee for ‘Loose Women’ in which she says something about Anne Frank that was beyond all expectations, was such a great section of the show.

But the duo seemed to leave the best for last and was something so far out of left field it hit us all so hard in the face I think I can still see the red mark.

Then comes their final piece, a BBC FOUR documentary about ‘Orville the Duck and ventriloquist Keith Harris’. From the moment this started I had my hand over my mouth. The two worked so well together on such a tight bit there wasn’t a section out of place and during the bit Hatty (who was playing Keith Harris’s agent) says ‘Do that again’ at which point I think the Italians thought I was insane. My eyes where crying FULL tears the entire bit was 100% no other word to describe it; Tony resentment of Orville, the political references, Hatty as the agent, and the banging northern accents meant that this was more than a bit. It seemed like this was their child an idea they had had and something that they had very carefully worked on to perfection.

They pulled this off with perfect timing that for 30 minutes after the show I was still laughing and my eyes where still watering. Hatty and Tony are a great double act who work so well off each other some of the other acts I’ve seen could really take note. Their character creation and story development is what sets them apart from the other acts, they have spent time, worked hard, and created one of the finest 1 hour sketch shows I think you would ever likely to see.

A real gem of a show…miss this you’ve missed The Fringe ***** Five Stars