Your Mum

Overheard at C Soco: “I’d like to see Your Mum – but only if there’s room”. An unpromising box office exchange, perhaps, but the title obscures a fine show. Siobhan O’Hagan, Jennifer Moon and Harriet Fisher – who, they tell us in their programme notes, met at drama school and bonded over their love of Alison Steadman – form a fine comic troupe. The three could not look more different, and their styles complement each other perfectly, giving the group a flexibility which allows the best of the writing to shine.

Their sketches maintain a consistent quality throughout, few raising uproarious laughter but all generating gentle titters throughout the audience. Fisher is excellent as speed-dating Sloane Anastasia – think Gap Yah with added pashmina – and as a struggling actor and waitress whose professional CV and glamorous headshot happens to find its way into the pages of her customers’ menus. Throughout, the solo sketches are often the strongest: all three are talented actors, with a frantic energy equal to their undoubted comic abilities.

There is some terrific invention here, and the roots of some excellent sketches: the office worker who fakes a pregnancy in exchange for time off work and some John Lewis vouchers is a particular highlight, and the gastropub song ends the song on a high note. There is a tendency, though, for sketches to peter out, with the writing not quite enough to carry through the bright ideas behind them. Despite these quibbles, however, this is an enjoyable and promising show – I will certainly return to see them next year.