Last year’s Flo & Joan show was great… This was better.

Packing in to the sold out Piccolo tent I had a feeling that something had changed. I’ve seen these clowns perform live twice before and on both occasions they were playing to a good crowd in a decent venue. The difference this time was that there was a murmur of expectation within the audience, an anticipation of what was to come.

This late in to a run I’m sure that they weren’t at all worried but being sat in the audience I did wonder what this increased pressure would do to their performance. It turns out that not only did they rise to it, they scrunched it up in to a little ball and knocked it clean out of the park.

Appropriately they opened with a track called Confidence and an opening skit that pretty much summed up their entire transition. This show was bigger and better than before – they were more confident with their banter (between themselves and with the crowd), braver with their songs (the trip to market ‘nursery grime’ is a perfect example) and very, very funny.

It was as if the whole ‘Flo & Joan’ experience had been given an intense sugar rush and it was all the better for it.

The title of the show refers to the recent Bros documentary – When the screaming stops – and is riffed off, to great comedic effect, throughout the show as an example of where sibling acts can go wrong and how that might happen to these two.

I wouldn’t worry though, this was the second “sisters” act that we had seen this day and in both were the words “you fucked up” followed by “yes, but no one would have noticed if you hadn’t pointed it out!” When you break flow for that unplanned exchange and the audience only laughs harder I think you can safely say that you’ve nailed the sibling act.

By the end of the show as they walked off stage we knew that we’d been treated to a pretty great performance – they owed us nothing (ooh ah) nothing at all.

Clown Stars: * * * *

 @Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh

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