Hollow Men

Pallid Python imitators have made us wary of bright young men performing sketches that push at the boundaries of the form. Happily, the Hollow Men are bright enough not to let their smarts overcome their silliness - or at least not for the most successful elements of this sporadically wonderful sketch show.

The opening pieces (involving Cupid, a policeman, and Zoom by Fat Larry's Band; then a brilliantly daft send-up of a police interrogation) aren't always matched by what follows, but it's sharply performed by a quartet with a strongly developed visual sense. The highlight is mime artist John Lippowicz's hilariously literal interpretation of Natalie Imbruglia's Torn. Italian entertainer Ennio Marchetto has built a career on far less.

But while half the material is topwhack, there's a quality-control problem that's stopping this bunch from fulfilling their enormous potential. They're least convincing when most cerebral - most Pythonesque? - such as in a dully surreal recurring routine about a scientist's cake fetish, or ending a cute poker sketch with some ho-hum dream logic.

Still, it all ends rather happily with a live rendition of a Bonnie Tyler video - maybe lacking the context that made last year's For Your Eyes Only title sequence such bliss, but still an enjoyably odd, stunningly performed coda to a show that sees the Men grow ever more confident as a unit, even if some of the material treads water.

Until Aug 26, Pleasance, 60 The Pleasance, 6.45pm, £9 and £10, £8 and £9 concs.