Splitting The Bill 2: Receipts Ahoy
Ken Valentine and Sam Bowring
The Rhino room
Fri 9 March
Until Sat 17 March


Ken Valentine and Sam Bowring couldn't be any more different with their individual approaches to comedy as they take half hour turns for each of their acts; hence the show's title.

Valentine is animated, quick and possibly a bit more literal with his stories; even if they do involve homosexual unicorns, diagnosing Mother Nature with obsessive compulsive disorder, pirate pornography and his childhood fear of his grandmother due to his belief that she was a comic book villain. After all, why wouldn't you trust a tall atheist with a beard whose latest phobia is the possibility of an eternity being locked in a service station toilet as penance?

Sam Bowring on the other hand is far more unhurried; even taking moments to question his own incredulous recollection of a recent holiday to Thailand where he even began to accuse himself of condom trafficking and tells of kicking a fish in the face. Bowring is a contemptible cynic who couldn't squash a baby spider but thinks up ways of killing kittens with a soup spoon and believes in mischievous sprites who live in timber products, and wonders why he even bothers to get out of bed each day. Definitely one of my favourite acts (as in plural) during this, as they were last Fringe Festival.

Steve Jones