Owing as much to the British surrealists as they do to Flight of the Conchords, Sammy J and Randy are an unlikely pair. One is a bookish looking skinny lawyer who is too nice for his own good and the other is a maroon colored muppet with a foul mouth, a sordid past and penchant for cooking President Obama’s recipes. What binds them together in Sammy J and Randy in Ricketts Lane (directed by ABC TV’s Spicks and Specks team captain Alan Brough) their follow up to Sammy J in the Forest of Dreams is a tale of tax fraud, Chebble (a cross between chess and scrabble) and sexy espionage all set to music – sometimes epic, sometimes funky, sometimes just incredibly ridiculous and uproariously funny.

Living together in a Glen Iris share-house¸ the somewhat Bromantic relationship between man and puppet is littered with cheeky self-reference, surreal moments of fourth-wall breakage, dark self-deprecation and witty banter between Sammy and Randy about anything and everything. The sitcom-style setup works well for the premise, but the pair really shine in song. Odes to how shitty their lives are, morose bluesy numbers about “The Law” and disco anthems break up the often-times sagging narrative and are the undoubted highlights of the show, compared with some of jokes trying a little too hard to elicit a chuckle which ultimately swing and miss. Sammy J’s performance noticeably improved as the night went on, his voice wavering in the beginning before taking flight for the finale. For fans of musical comedy, it’s certainly worth seeing.