Get that in your belly

Tonight's Underbelly press launch took over the Udderbelly (or for the more literally-minded, the big purple cow).Do we ever consider her, this purple beast who sleeps upside-down among us? She has needs, and wants; her belly too must be filled.

Perhaps we can imagine tonight’s acts as food inside her majestic stomachs... what would be her dish of choice?

Udderbelly's dinner menu

Denise van Outen - A carrot cake with lashings of icing and tiny marzipan carrots; surprisingly tasty but a little over the top.

Pythonesque - An English muffin that might be going a tad stale. Though they state a desire to to avoid purely imitating Cleese's cult sketch troop, it's unclear how they'll manage to break away from the inevitable comparisons. Reworking rather than repeating Python may be a challenge to maintain for a full length show, even with the readymade following.

Tom Tom Crew - A huge juicy steak (and chips); a meaty treat to be savoured. The chips are the impressive acrobatics, but the main attraction (the steak - work with my food metaphors here) is Peeping Tom's astounding beat boxing.

Carl Donnelly - A chunky soup; you're uncertain at first if you should use a spoon or a fork. But it turns out to be pretty hearty (one of those Covent Garden fresh ones perhaps) with a satifying aftertaste - Donnelly apologised for ending on "talking" rather than a joke, thereby creating a joke to end on and... you get the picture.

Comedy Bitch - Avocado and fish fingers (I witnessed someone eat this curious combination yesterday.) Two pretty different sketches, the strongest being the 'Mime School.' Like the avo-fingers combo, with the addition of a few more things in their full length show they should serve up a quirky treat.

Pete Firman - A lovely cupcake that you reach for... but wait, it's gone! Oh no, there it is, inexplicably balancing on the tip of someone's nose as part of one of Firman's seriously palatable magic tricks. The cherry on top is that he's funny, too.

Frisky and Mannish - A fabulous cherry pie, tangy and delicious as they waft their saucy but often refreshingly subtle take on pop songs under our noses.

The Dark Party - Slightly inexplicable as the final act, like cauliflower cheese for dessert. And like cauliflower cheese on its own, these three sombre clowns have an act that is solid, but their endurance and physical theatre needed more substance to be served up singularly, let alone last.

Udderbelly's big dinner decision
So what should we recommend to our big purple dinner from the menu?

For mains there’s really no other choice but steak (Tom Tom Crew), followed by cherry pie (Frisky and Mannish) or perhaps a cupcake (Pete Firman)... if it isn’t magiced away under her nose.