EDINBURGH 2026: Review: CHIP AND GUS: A COMEDY WITH BALLS, Venue 45 at TheSpace

Earlier this year, Marty Supreme made a case for ping pong as a metaphor for life’s constant ebbs and flows, and an outlet for a particular type of obsessive striver. In New York-based Fat Knight Theatre’s two-hander Chip and Gus: A Comedy with Balls, we hardly need the sport to be there at all, since the dialogue is written faster and punchier than anyone can hope to hit a ball across a table.

Our titular heroes are philosophy lecturer Gus (John Ahlin) and failing musician Chip (Christopher Patrick Mullen), who meet monthly to play ping pong in a rundown sports bar in upstate New York, and whose connection to one another initially remains somewhat mysterious. As they start their game, Gus’ academic pedantry rubs up against Chip’s world-weariness, and results in a barrage of clever wordplay and esoteric squabbles, about Dr Seuss’ birthplace or who should pay this month’s bar tab.

The dialogue, co-written by the performers, is of the sort where one can zone out and lose a few details here and there, and still maintain the general feel, that of a rapid tête-à-tête. Sometimes, the wood is lost in favour of the trees, and we don’t learn as much as we should about who these characters are away from the ping pong table – their friendship, rivalry, and potential homoerotic connection. The denouement revolves around an unseen female character, and her relationship with the leads feels underdeveloped and the ensuing revelations unearned.

It has been at least 10 years since this show’s initial development in New York, and some script details seem oddly out of time. Both of our middle-aged protagonists are familiar with some modern slang and pop culture references, but Gus seems surprised by an iPod. This is not a bad thing in and of itself, but it adds to the sense of a lack of broader context about these men’s lives. Even their lifelong obsessive devotion to ping pong is only hinted at, never fully revealed.

But when the performances are as fun to watch as these, my quibbles are minor. Ahlin directs himself and his castmate with elegant precision, the two of them forever prowling and stalking each other around the table, until they descend into slapstick physical violence. Both actors have an impressive ability to calibrate their ping pong with their speech, and at the show’s zenith the bouncing balls seem to provide an emotional barometer for the pair’s relationship.

Like its heroes, Chip and Gus is rough and ready, and far from perfect. It’s also, fortunately, impossible to look away from.

Chip and Gus: A Comedy with Balls plays at Venue 45 at theSpace until 29 August

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