In The Worst Game of All-Time, Patrick Barnes and Dave Richardson bring their podcast format to a live audience. It’s the first live show they’ve done, and the setup makes for a pretty unique comedic experience. After watching the Wellington Phoenix lose during the course of a brutal game of football, they emerge on stage and begin to try and talk about football. This ultimately forays into virtually everything. The two are good mates and are able to weave footballing analysis into normal conversation which is peppered with playful banter.

The style is in line with a number of other successful podcasts which have a vague overarching topic but ultimately talk about anything. Bob Mortimer and Andy Dawson’s Athletico Mince is another that begins with a footballing premise but quickly turns to absurdist comedy.

In the case of The Worst Game of All-Time, the duo cater to a broad church and manage to keep the audience engaged with pretty convincing banter that feels natural. There are regular cock-ups, which is something of a hallmark of their previous seasons. Intros are usually messy, which is actually pretty funny, and at the Gryphon this is no exception.

Despite traditionally recording with no audience, the pair manage to do a good job of externalising the recording process, which is surprisingly engaging and leads to some pretty funny exchanges, particularly relating to the relative inexperience of the hosts.

It isn’t a laugh a minute, and I’d question the overall merit in the format as a Fringe piece, but it is engaging in the sense that the audience are involved in the process: their presence makes the whole thing slightly more chaotic, which is good fun. The ability of Barnes and Richardson to handle an audience adds massively to what could have, on paper, been a losing match.

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