Review – This is Siberian Husky in the Misery Factory

Disappointment doesn’t just grow on trees: like everything else, it comes off a production line. This is the conceit to Misery Factory, as Siberian Husky (Dan Allemann and Simon Godfrey) takes us through its inner workings in a series of darkly hilarious sketches. The factory theme is appropriate, because this is a refined act; aesthetics are kept to an absolute minimum, and Dan and Simon work off each other like clockwork as they churn out the skits.

Siberian Husky have an absurdist streak to their humour which shows throughout their work. Although the characters we meet are fairly straight types — line workers, managers, safety inspectors, parents, etc. — they’re put in dark and silly situations. There’s a father who has to come to the terms with the tragic reality that his son has been born a trainspotter, and the manager who’s urgently in need of children’s tears to keep the factory machinery lubricated. With Python-esque discernment, Dan and Simon know when to lean hard on a joke (the “pelican” and “vinegar” vignettes only work because they’re completely oversold) and when to pull back and just left the laughs come (like the two workers discussing the merits of suicide).

This is Siberian Husky in the Misery Factory is an engine of comedy, motoring out the laughs; if it sometimes misfires, it never stalls. This is an hour of tight, tested humour from two talented and hard-working performers.