Prompted by the much-discussed Bros documentary, Flo & Joan’s final present fretted on the acrimonious finish to which sibling musical partnerships should have a tendency. This one appears to be like by way of the opposite finish of the telescope, on the prospect of those “singing spinster sisters” doomed to singledom and a 60-year co-dependency. That doesn’t appear such a grim destiny given the enjoyable that Flo, Joan (AKA Nicola and Rosie Dempsey) and their viewers have throughout two hours of their touring set Candy Launch. If its new suite of comedian songs isn’t fairly as big-hitting because the 2019 classic, that is one other entertaining provide from the Dempseys, crowd-pleasing and properly woven collectively.
The chat between songs feels looser, too. Nicola, on keyboard, remains to be taciturn. Rosie, on vocals and typically drums, remains to be dotty. However the dynamic feels much less engineered to be awkward than up to now. What appears spontaneous will not be all the time be so, thoughts you, given what number of informal asides are recycled as lyrics and punchlines later within the present. That brings a neat sense of construction to the night, whose numbers observe the duo’s journey by way of relationship apps, moments of mortification, and – reviving a again catalogue hit – nights (and jobs) misplaced to heavy consuming.
The relationship and relationships theme is evenly worn. One quantity imagines an alien boyfriend (“He doesn’t get together with my father / However he does get together with my microwave”). One other, off-message fully, addresses – with jazz fingers, trumpet noises and a satisfying spirit of free-association – these ageing male comedians inconvenienced by trendy mores. The laughs are evenly shared between songs and chat: I beloved the picture conjured in a single dialog, of the touring sisters in twin beds in a Travelodge, “slicing a quiche in half with a bank card”.
It’s not all glamour, then. Nor laughter, both, when the main focus turns to ladies’s public security with a track whose jauntiness is overshadowed (as I’m certain Flo & Joan know) by the awful realities it evokes. Elsewhere, merriment tends, nearly, to outpace real-world issues. It’s one other positive set from a duo whose co-dependency, whereas dangerous for them, is a boon for audiences.
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