Spymonkey - Bless, Gardner Arts Centre. Falmer

2:47pm Friday 23rd February 2007

We weren't always sure what was going on in this bonkers, anarchic and brilliantly random sketch show - but we laughed all the way through anyway.

King Herod and Salome dance naked in a see-through plastic bag, Saint Bernadette turns into a pole-dancing Britney Spears as she burns at the stake and a serial killer called the Ginger Singe-r compulsively sets light to red-headed people.

Inspired by a children's storybook about saints, the Brighton-based troupe play serious criminals enacting the lives of saints. A female rapist gets her kit off as much as possible, a pension-fund embezzler becomes gun-toting drug baron the Butcher of Tijuana and John the Baptist gets tempted by a seductive Salome.

Between these vignettes are arbitrary saintthemed comedy and physical theatre skits including a naked-except-for-a-pig-tail dance and an impression of Mother Teresa viciously fighting the Good Samaritan for the right to help the stranger by the side of the road.

There is also manic music, ridiculous dance, physical contortions and double helpings of slapstick interwoven with multimedia scenes projected onto a screen at the back of a stage.

Spymonkey stress this performance is a work in progress planned for Brighton's 2008 Festival and could change by the time next May comes around. This "in-progress"' status could explain the at times chaotic, unpolished feel of this wacky exploration of sainthood although, on the other hand, this is also its charm.

The action may be random, insane and often make little sense, but that is one of the reasons it is so funny.