The Leeds Tealights present In Our Jeans
Opened by Lewis Dunn
The Library Pub, 6th-7th March
Led by their president Emre Kose, The Leeds Tealights (of which Emre Kose is the president) took to the stage at the Library Pub, one final time before trekking to the Edinburgh Fringe, with their new show In Our Jeans – starring Emre Kose.
Jokes about Kose’s inflated sense of importance (ironic or otherwise) aside, the troupe has done a tremendous job this time round. They have come on leaps and bounds from their still brilliant first semester show Rebirth. The extra time they have had together has really allowed them to find their own style and feel comfortable with it and each other. The show was well structured, expertly executed and one of the funniest live performances I have ever seen.
Opening the show was self-made man of success Stanley Brooks, performed by comedian Lewis Dunn. Stanley is like a weird offspring of Moss from The IT Crowd, Sheldon Cooper and David Brent. Luckily their comic genius is definitely something Stanley has inherited. Dunn plays Stanley effortlessly, berating his audience for not having good enough dreams and not being successful like him, all while receiving well deserved laughter. He plays the character so well, in fact, that it wasn’t until he took off his tie and addressed the audience as himself that I realised Stanley was a character. This might be why one of Stanley’s jokes about not understanding feminism didn’t land with the audience. Every other gag was received well though, especially the interactive workshop with an audience member on how to sell a pen; a clever bit that suited Stanley’s clueless entrepreneur character perfectly. I also enjoyed the epilogue: Dunn’s story of when he applied for The Apprentice as Stanley, whose CV listed “attention to detail” twice and whose business involved a breakfast machine that dispenses toast and porridge from the same nozzle. A great warm up act for the sketch comedy to ensue.
After a short break, the Tealights took the stage. I honestly don’t know where to begin. Reviewing it sketch by sketch would take far too long, since every single sketch was top-drawer. Perhaps the easiest thing to do would be to address the biggest change to the Tealights since the last time I saw them. In Our Jeans tried to do more than just a series of unconnected sketches and introduced a meta-narrative about the group dynamic. The change was very welcome and I hope they continue with this format. What worked so well was the variety. The audience was treated to a handful of absurd and non-related sketches that were amazingly funny and well performed and then taken out of it by a conversation between the performers about what they were doing. It was unexpected and allowed them to characterise the show with their personalities, which was lovely to see. Not only this, but this form allowed the Tealights to become self-aware. After playing two stereotypical female roles, Em Humble brings the action out of the sketches and explicitly addresses the gender inequality in comedy. The boys’ solution: Humble should play more male roles! Then we’re thrown straight back into the sketches. Immediately she is wearing a cap and her only dialogue is along the lines of “I’m a boy in this sketch.” The meta-structure allowed the Tealights to make witty and relevant observations about their own work so the audience don’t have to.
In terms of the actual sketches, the Tealights have a winning formula and stick to it: place someone or something in a different context and see what happens. It works well because the audience recognise that someone is somewhere they shouldn’t be, and this colliding of worlds can lead to hilarious outcomes: Will Sidi as the pain-in-the-arse paintball martial giving a safety briefing to a group of WWI soldiers about to go over the top; Joe Goodman as Jesus if the Bible was told as a cheesy American sit-com; Sidi and Kose as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin calling in sick for the Moon landing because they were at Donuts the night before. This is absurd comedy at its best, performed with integrity and confidence and with all performers getting the nuances of each archetype spot on.
Payoff of the night has to go to the trilogy of Joe Callaghan’s Faux Pas. A few sketches in we see Callaghan and Kose awkwardly try to walk past each other but they keep side stepping the same way. Callaghan looks to the audience with a facial expression that says “Oh God what have I done?” as sad music plays. A few sketches later Kose goes for a high-five but Callaghan tries a fist-bump: cue the forlorn look and music once again. I will be honest and say I saw this one coming from the moment their hands awkwardly touched. But the gap between this encounter and the final one was long enough that it caught everyone off guard. Callaghan calls the teacher mummy at the register. Calling back to the look and music from earlier was easily one of the funniest moments of the show.
Merely describing their sketches really doesn’t do The Leeds Tealights justice. With In Our Jeans ingenious structure that combines witty observations, subtle and well timed meta-humour and top-tier absurdist comedy, this generation of Tealights has solidified themselves amongst the greats of student comedy.
George Bissett
The Scribe Review 