One of the big hits at last year's Streets of Brighton, Japanese double act Gamarjobat dazzled the crowds and subsequently sold out their full show at Komedia in record time.

The mohican-haired duo Ketch (red mohican) and Hiro-pon (yellow mohican) perform a type of mime comedy which completely transcends all cultural and language barriers, displaying a staggering talent for clever, funny, freeflowing mime and gentle acrobatics.

Dressed in flash matching suits and teddy boy shoes, their high energy, action-packed routine is Vaudeville meets Charlie Chaplin with a cheeky Benny Hill twist. There's a routine with a stationary suitcase and antics with disappearing thumbs and stretched limbs. There are doctored props, a waisthigh screen behind which the pair glide up and down as if on escalators, and there are, of course, the never before seen rock 'n' roll penguins.

Talking to Ketch, there is a sense his working relationship with Hiro-pon has a touch of the yin and yang about it.

"We are very different," he says. "I am a happy-go-lucky person who moves before I think. He thinks before he moves. That makes things interesting.

"When you make something new, a story or a new routine, his way is better. But when you perform, you shouldn't think because it's a live show.

You need spontaneity in the live situation. So we influence each other and have become more alike."

The pair met in 1995 at a festival in Japan where they were both performing as solo artists. They eventually got an opportunity to work together and eight years ago formed Gamarjobat, which means hello in Georgian.

The name, which Ketch says, "sounds very funny in Japanese", was a tribute to some Georgian friends they met along the way.

So what does he think makes Gamarjobat such a hit?

"Because we both really love mime,"

Ketch says. "We believe in this art. It's a quite important thing you cannot see or touch - the most important thing in life, and we want to share that feeling with lots of people."

Mime is also an excellent tool for communicating, he adds. "When we do shows outside Japan I feel it more. When we do a show in Europe, there are so many languages and borders - a lot of different people from different cultures and backgrounds all laughing at the same time. I think it is lovely. Mime makes everyone happy.

"People appreciate our show in Europe because you know the difficulties of communication as you see lots of different languages in daily life.

"People think mime is boring. We want to change this idea. Mime is funny."

  • Starts Wed 7.30pm, Thurs and Fri 6pm, Sat and Sun 2pm and 10pm