Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Tim Lynskey, Matt Rutter.

Monty Python may have sold its last dead parrot, served its last piece of Spam and finally insisted that he is not the Messiah, he is just a naughty boy but that’s not to say what has been bequeathed down the years has been forgotten, especially by the three men that make up Big Wow and arguably one of the finest pieces of comedy theatre that you ever likely to lay your eyes upon in  The Art of Falling Apart.

For Tim Lynskey, Matt Rutter and writer Robert Farquhar, The Art of Falling Apart is a monumental piece of comedy engineering, a plot so good, so marvelously funny that somewhere in the back of the auditorium it wouldn’t be a surprise to find the esteemed Michael Palin taking notes and the great Ade Edmondson grinning like a Cheshire Cat who has found out what you can do with a pan handle.

What sets it apart from a lot of productions is the exhilarating exhaustion that the audience feels as the stage goes dark. To watch both Mr. Lynskey and Mr. Rutter steam through a performance of 80 intense minutes, 80 minutes packed to the rafters and beyond with as much laughter as one body can cope with, to see the sweat pouring from almost every conceivable pore as they play more characters between them than people from Manchester who attend games at Old Trafford, an audience may feel the need to take both actors home and make sure they get a good night’s rest, for no human soul should be able to achieve what they do.

Yet they do sublimely and no matter how many times you see this play there is always something new poking its head out of the wings and shouting, “notice me.”

For the audience inside the Unity Theatre, everything was noticed, every sly joke, every look of wonderfully pained, comically orgasmic look given by the two actors was seen, loved and adored and it was with no surprise at all to see both men receive a resounding and spontaneous standing ovation for theirs, and Robert Farquhar’s, supreme efforts.

The Art of Falling Apart remains one of the most enjoyable, exhaustingly superb and funny plays to have had the honour of being performed in Liverpool by a cast that live, work and breathe in the city. A night of theatrical bliss.

The Art of Falling Apart is playing at The Pleasance during The Edinburgh Festival.

Ian D. Hall