Oh, you’re not leaving until the bell rings.

Part-sketch, part-nostalgia-fuelled-fever-dream, Hey Miss! is an hour comedy special by Keegan Thomas and Aaron James Douglas. Taking us through life in 2010, along with very personal glimpses into their digital footprints at the time, the duo scream, cry and sing to rapturous audience applause.

As far as premises go, this one’s solid. The pair have found themselves in detention after a major turning point in their adolescent lives. Keegan is unsure whether he’s made the cast list for the school’s production of Oklahoma! and Aaron is awaiting the return of a note from a confessed crush. Their teacher, played by Mog Connolly, refuses to put them out of their misery and give them the sweet release of knowledge, so they do what any two good troublemakers do; cause such a ruckus it forces the teacher to storm off.

After a phenomenal improv performance from Mog, the boys take the stage and set themselves up at the front of the class. What follows is a loud, proud nostalgia-driven series of bits that have the audience groaning, cringing and laughing, partly at the boys but there’s definitely a lot of self-reflection going on at Cavern Club tonight. There are visits to old Facebook statuses, recollection of movies that don’t deserve the slander they receive (I actually like Romeo + Juliet) and yearnings for a time that the boys don’t exactly look to fondly back upon.

Each of them is playing to their strenghts tonight. Keegan Thomas finds hilarity in his honesty; gasping for air after chugging down more V than he could swallow and reacting loudly to anything remotely controversial in the room. He’s just so good at listening to both the audience and his duo partner, that he’s a fascinating watch, even in the background.

Aaron James Douglas takes his failure-state style of comedy and ratchets it up to eleven. His entire being seems hell-bent on failing and getting laughs out of his massive lamentations. I understand that doesn’t really translate to text, but it’s genuinely the only way I can find to truly describe it. He wails, he screams, he humps the floor. And the audience loves it.

Hey Miss! is a show for those of us who remember what it was like playing Dark Magician in Attack Mode. It uses nostalgia to power its comedy, resulting in a lot of self-reflective humour that lands well with their fans. With a well-paced variety of bits and a lovable pair who you can’t help but root for, Keegan Thomas and Aaron James Douglas make you want to relive detention all over again.

But maybe without the heartbreak.

Disclosure: As a somewhat active member of the Wellington performing arts community, I may be quite familiar with a number of the performers in this show. Having said that, I am not a liar, and there is zero bias in my reviews, shut up.

Also, tickets were provided to me for free by the production. Literally changes nothing, though