How is it that ‘Fascinating Aida’ rarely get on television, when vastly inferior acts do? Having just seen them perform in Norwich it’s a question which continues to baffle me. I emerged from the Theatre Royal with my cheekbones aching, as did the rest of the audience. How come these three women don’t get on the BBC? How much funnier do they have to be? I mean, if Jack Whitehall appears on virtually every BBC comedy show without being that funny, why don’t this lot get a look in? They’ve been around for years, every show they do is sold out, yet someone in TV land doesn’t like them. They need to think again.
I hadn’t heard of Fascinating Aida until a few months ago when a friend sent me a link on Youtube. It was sketch about, er, dogging. Have a look at it and I guarantee you will find it the funniest thing you have seen this week.
See? Told you, didn’t I? And there’s a lot more where that came from. This was two hours of laugh out loud, quite risque humour. Indeed, bearing in mind all three are women of a certain age, they delighted in shocking an audience which was largely over the age of forty and very middle class. But it wasn’t just a sixty year old woman saying the C word which was funny, many of their song routines had an edge to them, even a political message. It’s safe to say they are not right wing. Take this sketch which takes aim at OFSTED…
They even sail fairly close to the laws of libel and slander. I do hope Tom Cruise’s lawyers never go to see it. There’s also a very funny series of very short songs, all of which are hilarious and some of which are clearly updated very recently. I’m not sure Wendy Deng, Rebekah Brooks or Tony Blair would find one of them very amusing, but the audience certainly did. Here’s a recent little song about the floods…
Apart from the Dogging song my favourite of the evening was all about taboos. They started off by outlining some of the taboos you just don’t talk about in polite company. Things like eating bogies out of a friend’s hankey, smegma, and…. Ipswich. That was guaranteed a cheer in Norwich. Unfortunately I can’t find a video of it, but here’s the sound…
Anyway, it was a brilliant evening and I hope some bright TV producer makes them the national stars they deserve to be.
They’re on a national tour. If they’re appearing near you, book a ticket. You won’t regret it. Here’s their tour schedule