It's been a bumper year for inventive sketch comedy – and Sheeps' show may be the most inventive yet. The conceit is that these are merely previews for the trio's Wembley Stadium debut. So, 10 minutes in, they decide not to perform the whole show, just to rework their knotty first sketch until it works. What follows is like Queneau's Exercises in Style disguised as a sketch show, as Sheeps perform, re-perform and reimagine one scene in infinite varieties.
The sketch in question is set in an aquarium, and finds a put-upon cleaner (Liam Williams) goaded by a jellyfish (Alistair Roberts) to murder his lazy colleague (Daran Johnson). But Williams isn't satisfied with the punchline, so they try a mimed version – very funny, in that Johnson doesn't understand how mime works. There follows a horror version (in the dark), a lateral version ("Let's see what Dick Man is doing at the time of the sketch!"), a version scripted while drunk the previous night. And finally a farce version, drawing on the ridiculously complex premise that Johnson's character hears only the first, fourth and sixth words of every sentence.
It's clever, arch and multi-layered, as Sheeps work through their anxieties about Wembley, thrash out personal differences, and float the idea that sketch comedy is fuelled by internal group disharmony. Give or take a few weak spots – musical numbers aren't their forte – the humour is deliciously unexpected, and draws deeply on the trio's odd personae: worrisome Williams, foppish egotist Roberts and unworldly Johnson, who just wants everyone to get on.
Finally, their restlessly imaginative new show celebrates how little you need to fuel successful comedy; how what actually happens may be largely irrelevant. By the end, you believe they could keep riffing on this nonsense scene forever, and it would still be hilarious.
Until 24 August. Box office: 0131-629 0430. Venue website.
