Space Gravy is like one massive sketch — the ultimate sketch — with all the bizarre jokes connected by the story’s absurd internal logic, forming a narrative about trying to make YASA (Yorkshire Aeronautics and Space Administration) the first organisation to land on Mars. It’s performed by the trio Pat Rascal: Anisa Khorassani, Matt Blin and Rob Davidson. Are they characters? Are they comedians? Are they clowns? They are all exceptional performers who can definitely make us laugh.
The show has come to Soho Theatre after an extremely successful Edinburgh Fringe run, where it was the seventh best-reviewed show of the 2025 festival — and watching it tonight, this is no surprise.
To be perfectly honest, it would be very difficult to accurately describe the entire plot. So much happens so quickly; the story veers off into wild tangents, always on the brink of complete nonsense. After an extended scene with a Greek couple, for instance, we return to our narrator, Yorkie Yorkshire Yorkshireson Humberside-Smith, who shrugs, “yeah, it probably went something like that,” pulling us back into the main storyline. Rather than feeling like empty randomness, however, each scene complements the last, working more like a continuous setup-and-punchline structure that builds something cohesive and constantly evolving.
The story kicks off with lip-syncing sections about Yorkshire’s performance at the 2012 Olympics — if it were its own country, it would have come 12th overall. It’s arbitrary details, like a fixation on the number twelve, that form the basis of the outlandish gags. From there, the trio are fuelled with astronomic confidence in the English county, treating Yorkshire pride like a form of extreme national patriotism, and they don’t stop until the three of them are crammed into a Yorkshire Tea–branded rocket (a cardboard box), ready to land.
Each scene is packed with proper clowning: immaculate physical comedy and precise phrasing that keeps it funny enough to earn the absurdity. The physical jokes are almost mathematical in their precision and construction. These are jokes that clearly take a lot of thought and practice to execute, but they land with immediate, visceral impact. Simple moments — Khorassani reappearing to scare Blin and Davidson after a blackout, an unfortunate incident involving a live dog in a bag, or a well-placed Shakira impersonation — are executed with perfect comic timing.
They also play with devices like narration, asides, and dialogue as tools for joke construction. A standout moment comes when they visit a Spanish space station to spy on its crew, armed with a giant phrasebook that translates exactly what the astronauts are saying. They create many games like these, each ripe for humour.
The accent work is phenomenal. In keeping with the cartoonish absurdity, the voices aren’t aiming for authenticity or nuance, but instead stretch pacing and sound for comic effect. There are shades of The League of Gentlemen in the character work, slightly grotesque in their hilarity: the Greeks with their cartoonishly large bulges, the devilish American NASA astronaut Elon Husk with his sneaky schemes, and a haggard, bald Jessica Ennis — whose inexplicable coughing up of a feather is an absolutely hilarious touch. Each character is recognisable yet entirely original and exciting.
It shouldn’t work. It really shouldn’t. And yet, somehow, it absolutely does. Once the insanity is set in motion, it just keeps building into something funnier and funnier. It’s sharp, punchy madness that you surrender to completely.
Published with The Reviews Hub
Rosie Wood 
Leave a comment