Gamarjobat

I first saw Gamarjobat at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2007. Their show was advertised as Japanese physical comedy and the poster had penguins on it. That's literally all it takes to sell me something. I went to see the show with Giorgio, and it was fucking brilliant. (Their 2008 show wasn't quite as good, but calling it 'slightly worse than fucking brilliant' isn't much of a criticism.)

If you haven't seen them before, Gamarjobat are two Japanese comedians, Ketch! and HIRO-PON. They do sketches and some magic tricks and general japes, wearing black suits, sunglasses and mohicans. The Japan Times wrote a special on them last week, so read it for more detailed description than 'they are fucking brilliant'.

When I was in Japan last summer with the Crisis Team we saw adverts that Gamarjobat had filmed for the Tokyo local councils showing on the Shibuya Crossing Screen. They are short clips that warn people not to litter or throw chewing gum onto the streets, that sort of thing. These are them:

Shadow


Chewing Gum


Can
They've just had a pilot show screened on BBC3, which you can watch by clicking here. It's only up there until the 13th of February though, so watch it soon. Because it's fucking brilliant. (Also, if you're boycotting the BBC post-DEC-controversy then you can justify watching it by reminding yourself that the pilot was filmed before that scandal.)

This is a clip from the show.