Matt (Matt Johnson) and Jay (Jay McCarrol) have dreamed of playing a show at The Rivoli their entire lives, and their latest hare-brained scheme to do so results in them accidentally travelling back in time.

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is a comedy where your enjoyment will depend almost entirely on how much you buy into its surreal premise and unusual production. Real-life comedians Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol have been playing exaggerated versions of themselves for nearly two decades, and the film stitches together footage shot years apart to create what is essentially a feature-length pastiche of Back To The Future. That achievement alone is remarkably clever.

The history behind the project is almost as unusual as the film itself. Between 2007 and 2009 the duo released a web series called Nirvana the Band. Between 2017 and 2018 they followed it with Nirvanna the Band the Show, before finally arriving here with Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie. It feels like an absurd amount of history to explain for what is, at its heart, a wonderfully silly joke: a band with no songs, desperate to play a gig at a local venue, who refuse to simply ask for one and instead concoct increasingly ridiculous schemes in the hope of making it happen.

What fascinated me most was the way the filmmakers seamlessly blend old and new footage together to convince us that the characters have genuinely travelled back in time. The technical ingenuity required to pull off that illusion is genuinely impressive and often more entertaining than the comedy itself.

That is perhaps where the film becomes more difficult to recommend. Long-time fans will undoubtedly delight in the continuation of a joke that has been evolving for years and may already be wondering what increasingly ridiculous title the next instalment will carry. For newcomers, however, this is undeniably niche viewing. Much of the comedy rests on Jay acting as the straight man while Matt creates increasingly absurd situations for the pair to bounce off, and whether that dynamic works for you will largely determine how much you enjoy the film.

Top marks are due for the sheer commitment to the joke and the ingenuity required to weave together footage spanning decades into a convincing time-travel story. I just wish the comedy itself had matched the creativity behind the filmmaking. As it stands, Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is an impressively inventive curiosity that will undoubtedly find its audience, even if that audience is likely to remain a very specific one.