In their program description, veteran Fringe funnymen Rauce Padgett and Joel Warren — former hosts of the Festival’s much-missed late-night talk show — winkingly advise patrons to “smoke in the car” before the show. But even if you don’t puff-puff-pass, you definitely don’t want to pass on this brilliant hour of bite-sized comedy gems.
At an average length of five minutes, none of these 10 skits (plus a bonus encore) has a chance to outlast their welcome. Every single premise — from an Oprah-obsessed Top Gun instructor and an idiot burglar, to a demonic tipping debate and a modern update of Abbott & Costello’s “Who’s On First” — generates comedic gold, and at least 80 percent of the punchlines land with a big belly laugh, which is a spectacular statistic for any sketch comedy.
This is certainly not a show for the easily offended, with raunchy routines about a masturbating astronaut, phallocentric pirate, and self-hating gay cowboy. But Padgett and Warren are too goofy for their gags to feel mean-spirited, and they are always the biggest butts of their own humor. Fringers who feel like laughing until their sides are sore will surely score more than their money’s worth from these 10 Sketches.
Orlando Fringe Festival: Tickets and times for “10 Sketches With Rauce and Joel”
Seth Kubersky
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