Review: METROLAND LIVE: THE BOX, Soho Theatre

“Comedy must stay in the box”

Walking into Metroland LIVE: The Box, audience members are greeted by a gym instructor in bright pink gym shorts, who is encouraging everyone to remove their jackets as things are going to get hot in Soho Theatre Upstairs. The man (Caden Elliott) introduces himself as Cum McGroin and has the audience out of their seats doing hip thrusts to get warmed up for the hour ahead. And, just like that, “class is in session.”

Metroland is made up of five comedians from the North East of England - Jack Robertson, John Dole, Caden Elliott, Jack Fairley and Connor Lawson. The group, named after Europe's former biggest indoor theme park in the North East, is known for its online sketch comedy. As someone who is unfamiliar with their online content, I was interested in seeing how the group performed live. 

There is one recurring bit that focuses on  the characters of “The Grafters,” where the five performers wear high-vis vests and respond to a disembodied voice that makes it feel as though the audience is watching a children’s television series. One of the grafters, Beef, is obsessed with a box of Space Raiders crisps hanging from the ceiling, but he is discouraged by the disembodied voice from opening it, as he does not “deserve” the comedy inside. 

Most of the sketches tend to have one or two central characters and feature a few minor characters as the other performers prepare for the next sketch backstage. One character is the stereotypical Northern man, so Northern that, instead of smoking a cigarette, he smokes a Greggs sausage roll, offering his own “cigarettes” to audience members in the front row and coughing up flakes of puff pastry. He then finds himself in a room where a man is giving a presentation, clicking away with a clicker in hand, only there are no slides to be seen. It appears the group all have a smoking sausage roll tattooed on them, which is truly committing to the bit.

Other sketches include a group of men obsessing over the rules and regulations of thumb wars, a chef teaching the audience how to make the perfect Pot Noodle with some horrifying results, the lesser known brother of the angel Gabriel, Benjamin, who has an addiction to snorting Angel Delight and even a message from the show’s “sponsor,” Unilever. 

The show truly shines when it leans into the more absurdist bits. I particularly loved a sketch dedicated to the concept of a Scotch egg, with one performer giving his praise for the creation in prose and the other questioning the food’s reason for existing. The two hilariously contrast each other and lead to some of the biggest laughs of the night - I, for one, felt a few tears welling up from how hard I was laughing during this bit. 

For those who love seeing comedians break, there is a whole segment dedicated to this, in which four members of the group try to make the other laugh. If they are successful, they get to slap the laughter in the face with what appears to be shaving cream/custard on a plate. If they’re unsuccessful, it goes into their face instead. This appears to be the only improvised part of the show and gets some of the biggest laughs as the comedians do some ridiculous impressions and try to make as many absurd jokes as possible. 

A few of the sketches go on for a bit longer than necessary, either repeating a gag several times or just rambling on. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the majority of the “Billy the Stink” sketch in which Robertson becomes the human embodiment of the smell of urine in the men’s restroom and faces off against Fairley as the janitor, though the Of Mice and Men-like ending was truly great and worth the few extra minutes. 

Metroland LIVE: The Box is a great hour of sketch comedy that, while being absurdist and silly, still makes a surprisingly powerful point of taking back the concept of comedy from the elite and making it something accessible for everyone. 

Metroland LIVE: The Box ran from 27-29 March at Soho Theatre.