Look out for the Yanks — and the morris dancing!

Instructions For American Servicemen In Britain (Jermyn Street Theatre) Verdict: Fringey revue material ★★★✩✩

FOR harmless if slightly over-strenuous fringe-show japes, you could do worse than take in Instructions For American Servicemen In Britain at the doughty Jermyn Street theatre.

When U.S. military personnel arrived here in World War II, they were given a guide to British culture. This three-man skit takes that idea, using various characters.

The jokes are not exactly high-tech. An American colonel asks a comrade, ‘Where’s the chief navigator?’, only to be told ‘he’s lost’. Warning: there is audience participation; by the end they have the whole house doing some morris dancing, funnier than it sounds.

Although the first half becomes strained, things improve after the interval with a good sketch about British understatement and another in which James Millard (best of the trio) plays a randy old Scotswoman with an eye for a GI. He’s as good as Stanley Baxter.