Here’s a perfectly darling show by Jonestown – two strong performers who know how to wow an audience. Guinea Pigs involves a couple of old high school friends caught up in some, er, dodgy experiments run by a smugly arrogant artificial intelligence. Sarah Jones and Nicholas J Johnson are the guinea pigs. They’re locked in a small room and forced to undergo a series of tests designed to explore the darker side of their psyches and test their friendship. Presumably they’ll be released eventually but ‘in the meantime’ makes for some really nice comedy fun.
Jones and Johnson are a charming and cute duo with the ability to build an excellent audience rapport. Guinea Pigs was awarded the 2015 Brian McCarthy Memorial Moosehead Award, which offers development assistance to promising new shows trying out different approaches to the world of comedy. Jones and Johnson were also Golden Gibbo Award nominees last year.
Guinea Pigs is one of those shows where you don’t mind being called up for a bit audience participation and you might get to revisit a past you didn’t know you had. The story goes down some surprising alleys during some nicely signposted flashbacks. A beautiful bit of finger silhouette moves the narrative along at one point. Funny and a refreshing alternative to straight stand-up.
BY LIZA DEZFOULI
