Check in to comic hotel... it makes a great impression

Ronni Ancona & Lewis MacLeod: Just Checking In Funny way to run a business ★★★★✩

EVEN top Scots impressionists Ronni Ancona and Lewis MacLeod admit that Just Checking In is built around a pretty flimsy theatrical construct.

Namely, a once iconic Scottish hotel, faded into decline, is about to be taken over by Donald and Melania Trump, with a load of celebrity guests and eccentric staff on hand to greet them. Who’d have thunk it?

But it’s the perfect excuse for the duo to utilise their impressive skills to the max in what is a very funny and clever show, co-written with Kim Fuller.

Avoiding clunky cues such as ‘I wonder what such-and-such would make of that?’ to switch voices, MacLeod and Ancona (pictured) instead make themselves as much a part of the furniture of the hotel as the guests and staff they conjure up. This allows them to comment on the goings-on around them and exchange banter, while at the same time moving the plot (such as it is) along with at least a sense of momentum. As the characters begin to spiral out of control and rail against their one-dimensional portrayals, the pair start suffering from an identity crisis.

It’s a load of silly old hokum, of course. But then what we’re really here to see is Ancona and MacLeod do what they do best.

And in that regard they don’t disappoint, and the whirligig of impressions they trot out are an absolute hoot.

Ancona’s Olivia Colman, incapable of a full sentence without pausing every two words for emphasis, is side-splittingly funny, as is her wacky, vampiric Melania Trump.

MacLeod, in turn, delivers a terrific BoJo in a Cinderella segment that is the most stitchedon part of the show. His Donald Trump and blithering Ian McKellen – ‘I’m 80!’ – are a joy.

There’s also plenty of mileage to be had in the characters of the hotel staff. Comedy from the top drawer. l Gilded Balloon, until Aug 17