It’s a bit of one thing and a bit of the other, this spoof corporate-retreat comedy from a stellar transatlantic creative team. On the one hand, The Retreat is a mixed-bill variety show, with guest acts filling out its 55-minute running time. On the other, it’s an eye-catching collaboration between American comics Anne Gregory (of Parks and Recreation) and Rebekka Johnson, alongside British pop star, and Johnson’s co-star on Netflix’s Glow, Kate Nash. Gregory and Johnson play the “She-E-Os” of a company that makes unprepossessing period pants, at whose corporate away day we are all assembled. It’s a strong enough premise to sustain its own show, and I ended up a little frustrated that it’s not given the chance to do so.
It’s not that we get short-changed: with visiting sets tonight from standup Nick Pupo, Grown Up Orphan Annie (AKA Katherine Bourne Taylor) and drag act Crudi Dench, there’s bang for our buck. But those sets aren’t integrated into the overall conceit. And in the gaps between them, there’s little time for Gregory and Johnson to develop their characters Diana Corn and Silver Surfer beyond two crudely drawn dimensions.
The comedy is broader than the gusset on the diaper-like “Men-ses period panties” both wear, as they rally “forced fun” among the audience/participants, read out gross reviews of their duff product, and orchestrate a communal howl to synchronise the periods of everyone in the room.
It’s too rushed and OTT to function as a satire on team-bonding, girl bossing and corporate self-delusion. Our two hosts, bawling out their errant employees in the crowd, are loud, in-yer-face, completely self-unaware and barely differentiated. But the show has an anarchic energy and raucous spirit of fun, the more so when Nash joins in (as she does when her schedule allows) – first to perform a couple of her songs, which feels like a treat, then to muck in with the twerking celebration of, ahem, “wet ass pussy” to which the show latterly ascends. It’s a fun curio, then, that whet my appetite to see the characters, and the conceit, developed over a whole show.
At Underbelly Cowgate, Edinburgh, until 27 August
