EDINBURGH 2014 - BWW Reviews: THE CLEEK, Mash House, August 9 2014

The Cleek are a group of artists who met on an improvisation and sketch writing training course at Chicago's Second City and have reunited their members from the UK, US and Australia to bring their show to the Edinburgh Fringe 2014 festival.

The performance is half sketch and half improv and the running order of the sketches is determined by an audience member who has been awarded an inflatable crown. After each piece when they shout "scene" his job is to pull a card out of a bowl with the name of the next scene on it.

The Cleek rely on audience suggestions for a large portion of the show which really emphasises their skills. The sketch scenes are polished and are all executed brilliantly. One of my particular favourites was when two members of The Cleek had to perform an improvised scene with suggestions from the audience in one minute. After this they had to perform the same scene in 30 seconds, 15 seconds, 7.5 seconds and then 3.75 seconds. The last one was a bit of a push but overall this was incredibly well done.

The comedy in The Cleek is great but what really impressed me was how well the group seem to work together especially with improv. The other thing that I really enjoyed was that they look like they're having a great time doing it as well.

The Cleek is part of the free Fringe at Mash House until August 24th.