Sketch comedy is in peril. Once a staple of the comedy landscape, it has been eroded by panel shows, streaming-friendly stand-up, and the endless churn of short-form internet clips. Good sketch comedy — the kind that builds worlds in seconds, surprises without leaning on nostalgia, and resists recycled tropes — is rarer still. Rory Marshall’s Pathetic Little Characters not only proves the form is alive, it shows it can still be exhilarating. This is character comedy at its most refined: stripped of frills, and performed with a precision that borders on theatrical discipline.

From the first beat, it’s clear Marshall is operating on a different level from graduate improv staples. The set is almost monastic: a chair, a handful of unfussy lighting changes. It’s not sparse so much as deliberate — a space curated to keep every ounce of focus on the performance.

Over a tightly wound 60 minutes, a cavalcade of sharply etched figures comes and goes. A Love Island-style dating spoof captures both the swagger and brittle insecurity of a lone contestant. A police statement spirals into surreal absurdity and turns into pure comedy gold. There’s the middle-class party guest trying too hard to fit in, the purveyor of the worst clubbing chat imaginable, an unhinged teaching assistant, a self-infatuated, passive-aggressive, misogynistic barman — and the standout: a confidence-guru-cum-self-help evangelist whose weaponised platitudes are as hilarious as they are faintly menacing.

Some of these creations vanish as quickly as they arrive; others reappear, reframed in new situations. The pacing is immaculate. Not a sketch overstays its welcome — each lands, earns its laugh (or gasp), and bows out before the energy dips.

Marshall’s great trick is transformation without disguise. No elaborate costumes, no latex, no wigs — just voice, movement, and the quicksilver shifts of expression. Within thirty seconds, you believe you’re seeing someone entirely new. There are shades of Coogan’s observational edge, The Fast Show’s brevity, and Peter Sellers’ chameleonic agility, but the work is unmistakably his own.

This is an excellent entertaining show. You feel as if you’ve been spun through a gallery of strangers, each so vividly drawn you half-expect to bump into them in the Pleasance Courtyard afterwards. Pathetic Little Characters is fast, funny, and flecked with moments of pure brilliance. In a festival that sometimes prizes quantity over craft, Rory Marshall stands out as a reminder that sketch comedy isn’t dead — it’s a precision weapon, and in the right hands, it still hits hard.

A real find. If the SNL scouts are in town, here’s your Blighty answer for a Not Ready for Prime Time Player.