As a lover of all things retro, the competition to win a ‘70s Bionic Woman annual would have been enough to tempt me along to Domestic Goddi’s night of sketch, character and stand-up. As it happens the duo (BBC Comedy Award Winner Helen O’Brien and Stage Award nominee Genevieve Swallow) featured an enticing line-up of talent, alongside their own sketches, including if.comedy Newcomer nominee Pippa Evans and Funny Women Finalist (2004) Bridget Christie.

The Lowdown at The Albany provides an intimate and relaxed setting – with its alcoves and low ceilings, reminiscent of a disused rail station that’s had new life breathed into it – it’s ideal for viewing the household names of tomorrow in close proximity.

Bridget Christie instantly charmed the crowd as A Ant, the indignant (or indign-ant) ant performing stand-up around the country, peeved at losing out on its novelty status to all the other ants on the circuits (it’s not the ‘80s anymore) and being forced to tone down its more controversial Islamic material in favour of the standard ‘ant’ jokes. Dressed in what an ant might choose to wear upon eating magic mushrooms and raiding a fancy dress box, (complete with tie and multi-coloured antennae) the costume and persona were hysterical. Indeed, Bridget did corpse slightly (despite her training) when admonishing the techie for being ant-ist (and probably me now for not ascribing a gender!) in response to him playing Adam Ant music upon entering.

Paula Goldstein did a very convincing turn as the needy and creepy Mirabelle lasciviously recounting her tales of entrapment on the bendy bus with lines such as, “I do love it when you stand in the middle of the bus and your legs get pulled apart..”  conversing with the audience in an unsettling enough manner to get the men in the first row running, and running fast. So convincingly did Paula get into character, I’m ashamed to admit I’d wondered who the mad woman bumbling around in the alcoves earlier on was.

The American “Dory Lama” (or Dory Dutton) who aims to “heal with laughter” has a strong presence on stage along with equally strong jokes that leave a British audience feeling somewhat affronted, as though they’ve been handed tea in a beaker instead of the requested cup and saucer. That’s our problem though and happily she will not be toning down her American up-front demeanour for anyone.

Pippa Evans is brilliant as the sociopath musician Loretta Maine, whose diatribes against the defenceless, babies and traffic wardens among them, you can’t help but agree with occasionally. “If you’ve got a vendetta, don’t take it out on Loretta”, a dictum you would be wise to heed to – again, Loretta, with her wild, crazily-strewn hair and  laugh, that says “I’d gleefully make chutney from sticking your nuts in a vice”,  is so believable, I think I’d genuinely shake with fear if I ever met her. And if you were so unfortunate as to end up having a relationship with her, heed her warning: “Never leave me if you like living.”

Bridget Christie, who performed stand-up in the second half, is equally as charming as ‘herself’, as she is playing A Ant. She apologised for not writing any ‘jokes’ but her observations on how the mundane of everday can lead you to say such awe-inspiring things as “I could make a ratatouille or casserole with that fish – out of all the things I could say to my husband..” are very funny.  She’s clearly genuinely comfortable just riffing with the audience.

Funny Women semi-finalist (2009) Annabel Giles won the audience over with her very likeable personality that refuses to be self-deprecating about her ‘poshness.’ Parents do tend to provide hilarious material, not least posh ones, and some of her family’s quips are funny albeit worrying, for example, a dad who says “people who don’t pay their poll tax are asking to be raped” (the logic being if you don’t pay for street lighting you’ll be raped in the dark) and decides during the Queen’s Speech that he can’t stand “that women”, he is of course referring to the “deaf” lady signing in the bottom corner.

In between these acts, Domestic Goddi demonstrated their impressive and versatile comedic skills with sketches that included a hilarious exploration into miner ‘Billy Blackburn’ and his long suffering wife’s deep angst over not being able to pay broadband bills and the added confusion of multiple remote control options.

Domestic Goddi do regular nights at Lowdown at the Albany. Stay tuned for more details.