Bruce Dessau

Thanks heavens for Joanna Neary whose skewed clowning is gloriously different. Frizzy haired and porcelain cheeked, her forte is superbly off-kilter sketches. One moment she is a sublimely funny Bjork, the next she is a netured cat sporting a boater and a stoic grin. An immaculate Brief Encounters parody encapsulates a lost age of repressed passion, snobbery and lumpy marmalade. Two skits shunt her onto the must-see list. The Billie Holiday-ish dissection of sexual metaphors in jazz is breathtakingly convincing, while her showstopper is the Pan’s People-esque interpretation of the suicidal lyrics in Harry Nilsson’s Without You.