Comic pairing is Streets ahead

THICK AS THIEVES, Pop-up theatre, Mumps, to October 11
Last year Mark Whiteley’s Hard Graft company entertained us with “I Love Oldham”, a funny, quirky comedy set — and performed — in a charity shop in Oldham’s market hall.

This year the company moves downhill from Tommyfield to Mumps — but upwards in terms of the comic content.

“Thick as Thieves” is a sort of “Waiting for Godot” with jokes; not much happens, but the dialogue is entertaining enough not to worry about that.

Tellingly the programme — I say programme, it’s a cheerful set of postcards — features at its heart a “mind map” about the show, which seems an unlikely prospect as the central characters have little or no brain to speak of.

Steph and Barry (former “Coronation Street” actors Steven Arnold and Jonny Dixon, both energetic and skilfully manic as hopeless housebeakers, egged on by director David Crowley) have broken into the wrong house and what they find there doesn’t make their mood any better or likelihood of criminal reward more likely.

In a series of exchanges they discuss the cooking temperature of (dead) budgies, the likelihood of police capture, doing a big shop at Asda and much besides, their mood increasingly frantic as they find themselves deeper in the mire with little chance of dreaming up a plan to get out of it.

Whiteley skilfully takes his time setting up some great jokes, and there are occasional bits of slapstick to cheer the 40-odd audience members at each performance.

Arnold and Dixon are a great comic team; the former supposedly the experienced criminal, the latter not at all. As Dixon’s character finds out, Arnold’s character Steph isn’t as good a housebreaker as he was led to believe.

The whole thing is short, funny and again makes great use (courtesy of designer Calia Perkins) of an empty shop unit — this time next to the Mumps Metrolink station, handy for all your ill-gotten-gains removal needs.