Comedy dancing has been around a long time

Comedy dancing has been around a long time. We’ve probably all seen magnificent displays from the likes of the Monty Python team, Ricky Gervais and even Alan Partridge, with his genuinely arousing striptease. But there’s definitely something quite unique about the comedy dance duo New Art Club.

Most notably, they're both trained and highly experienced dancers, which means they can do a lot more than your average overweight comedian, prancing about like a mal-coordinated baboon. Furthermore, their entire act is built around inventive comic routines that exploit those dancing talents, making this the first comedy show I’ve seen completely devoted to the medium of dance. Whereas many comedians incorporate dancing to look as ridiculous as possible, New Art Club have a deadpan seriousness about much of their performance (though they are also perfectly capable of extreme silliness at times as well).

In this respect, they remind me most of Laurel and Hardy, dancing the brilliantly choreographed and beautifully executed routine outside the saloon doors in Way out West, the charm of which is that they play it straight. There are no particularly silly faces or movements as such; just a real sense of joy about what they’re doing.

This links into another quality New Art Club have: great chemistry. Pete Shenton plays the more intellectual, serious member of the team whilst Tom Roden is the more passionate and silly. Yet, as with many double acts, the two characters are actually very similar, as we see when their facades start to slip and they lose control of their actions. Also crucial (and another feature of most top double acts) is the sense of mutual affection between them, no matter how much they slag each other off behind the other’s back.