The Two Horsemen

Unbridled Fun

The Two Horsemen

by Liam Brennan and Tom Jacob-Ewles

The Camden Fringe at The Aces and Eights until 23^rd August

Review by Brent Muirhouse

Despite their show’s name hinting otherwise, The Two Horsemen, part of the Camden Fringe at the gloriously fun Aces and Eights certainly wasn’t half an improv act performance missing the same number of stallions once over, but rather one with the horsepower befitting of a Porsche Carerra, careering through comic highways and running purely on quick wit and joyous absurdity.

Plenty of gimmicks, and a loose theme staged around the fame-hungry nature of one of the pairing, create a narrative stable in which a range of improvised sketches and scenarios are played out.  We’re introduced to the medieval ‘tavern circuit’ of the improv scene by an emcee who purportedly has the bubonic plague and, some sneeze-related gags aside, we’re told that Liam (Liam Brennan) and Tom (Tom Jacob-Ewles) are legends of the (admittedly very niche) scene.

After some initial setting of the rules of engagement, the Two Horsemen hit their equine stride with very neatly paced improvised action to show their craft.  Both Brennan and Jacob-Ewles have the air of two experienced hands at their craft, which they indeed are having met at university and performed together since 2009.  Yet what is particularly nice about their style is that they are not above any audience suggestion, or are too seriously thespian to occasionally snort a laugh at their own preposterousness, a trait which the audience warms to and makes the show feel like a closer-knit affair.

Whilst the ‘narrative’ of the show ultimately serves to merely present the opportunity for both of the Two Horsemen to showcase their improv chops, it does create a welcome break in the fast-paced, eccentric energies of their reactive performance.  Asides from our plague-riddled narrator (also played by Liam Brennan), we have moments where Brennan’s character confesses his desire to gain an Ancient Greek level equivalent of Hollywood fame, before Jacob-Ewles states their double act friendship is ironclad, before amusingly becoming the embodiment of a toga-wearing Steven Spielberg of their era, ‘Sophocles Jr.’, who tempts Brennan towards the pull of glitz and glamour as a solo performer.  The use of a bell, gifted on this occasion to an audience member named Tim to press, to force the pair to change the last line they said, works a real treat and really showcases the speed of both actor’s comic craniums.

The story arc could’ve been a tangent too far had the writing been too smug and self-indulgent, but Brennan and Jacob-Ewles play to their strength in improv, knowingly keeping the apparent cut scenes short and sweet before engaging the audience in creating scenes of famous children’s tales and motion pictures (thanks to the vision of the aforementioned Sophocles Jr.), reimagined with their zany and skilled interpretations.  The quality of the Two Horsemen’s back and forth, absorbing seamlessly the audience’s random cues and haphazard outbursts (on this night at least) to form enough of a coherent comedy journey was both charming and hysterical to watch in equal measures, and a privilege to be part of.

I couldn’t help feeling that, by the final curtain call, as The Two Horsemen, Brennan and Jacob-Ewles had simultaneously sold the audience both a tight improv comedy set and the promise that once you’d seen them perform, you could always be part of their shows, tavern circuit or otherwise.  The warmth of an after-chuckle and their comedic camaraderie is what stayed with me as I left the theatre to the five-road junction at Tufnell Park, lit up rosily by the streetlights of suburbia.

Brent Muirhouse, August 2023

Photography courtesy of HS2