The Pajama Men are a Far Side comic come to life. To call them unhinged would be a disservice, as fast with word-play as they are on swapping characters, they won the Barry in 2009 and have returned to the festival with a first for them. Their new show is based on pre-existing material rather than usual flights of lunacy. “We ran out of ideas,” Shenoah Allen confesses. Shenoah is the man in the bigger set of pajamas, unsurprisingly also the bigger of the two Pajama Men.
Their shows play out like a never ending stream of consciousness, random characters take off on flights of fancy taking the audience along for the ride, when in fact you are simply watching two guys in pajamas wave their arms around on stage. Like everything the Pajama Men do, there is an involved backstory to the new show. “Many years ago the Kelly Leonard (VP of an American comedy institution called Second City) came and saw us in our first ever show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival,” explains Shenoah. “The show was dying. We were losing our shirts and this guy saw us and was like “Hey, that was great. I’m gonna bring you to Chicago!” He was one of four people in the audience the night he came and took a huge chance on us and really helped establish us as an act. A decade later he rang us out of the blue and said. I want you to write 2 Man 3 Musketeers. We thought, well you work where Bill Murray got his start. You discovered Tina Fey. You took a chance on us when we were completely unknown. You have a funny idea for a show and you want us to write it? You got it. We teamed up with another writer this time around too. A hilarious guy named Tim Sniffen.”
Up until now it has been impossible to guess what can and will happen in a Pajama Men show, so basing their show on a 1844 novel might take away some of the fun. “We have zero fear of that,” is his reply. “No one’s read this book. Right? Or do you have a dog eared copy of Dumas’ classic sitting on your nightstand? One of our characters is so fat he can disguise himself as a beige lake.” He is right, because I surely don’t remember that guy in the Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris O’Donnell and Oliver Platt version of the movie. On reflection it sounds a lot like either Charlie Sheen or Oliver Platt these days. Their shows are layered with so many different, insane characters, my favourite has always been a tiny man with crab hands that said, ‘But I’m so small.’ “Yeah that little guy was great,” responds Shenoah. “What the hell was it? We still don’t know. I’d revive Jennifer. A 14-year-old girl that was occasionally possessed by dark forces. I really liked riding that line between Peewee Herman and Rob Zombie.”
If that sounds like something you’d want to see then the Pajama Men’s tangents are for you. Much like trying to decide would win in a fight between a gorilla and a polar bear (cage match, not on home turf or in jungle or on ice). “Gorilla for sure,” snaps Shenoah. “Polar bears tend to be mostly fur. Ever seen one wet? They look like Whippets.”
BY JACK FRANKLIN
