The Improverts start with a game which involves the group taking it in turns telling a story, with audience suggestions added regularly, but without starting their piece with and or but - harder than it sounds with a late-night audience, some still sober enough to try and make it tricky.

The next game involves working through the alphabet, with each sentence starting with the next letter. They ask for a relationship between two people, and somehow end up on brother-lovers. This makes for an interesting tale of love, incest, and occasional bemused pauses.

Commentators covers the International Onion Chopping event. Using a spoon didn't get the Brit off to the best start, but the detail gives the Improverts a good lead.

When the Pope needs a crisis to work through, the audience's late-night attitude shows even more, as he has the dire problem of 'too many boys to choose from'. This is over a bit fast - and perhaps a bit too simply - but the comedy is there.

Marriage Guidance Counsellor is a game in which the unhappy couple have to guess what their problems are. Between the lady having a walrus fetish, and her husband being severely disabled, this couple certainly has issues trying to guess what the 'big teeth' are all about.

The panel of experts is fun, pontificating in a late-night-chat-show-style on the joys and difficulties of making ice. Apparently the solution is orphans, but it is hard to involve all four players fully.

Stunt Doubles takes the comedy onto a more physical level, while still having enough verbal gags. The doubles have to swap in whenever the actors shout 'stunt doubles' and take on anything, depending on the film-genre the audience have suggested. The jealousy between two nearby shops is elegantly summed up in a great line about one's prowess with Sage Accounting.

In the next skit, the audience call out numerous emotions at the start. One pair then act-out the called-out suggestion of meeting an internet friend, changing speedily through a range of feelings, from horniness to anger.

The classic game Should Have Said allows the audience to join in with changing what's said and what therefore happens. This can often make any piece of dialogue far funnier, but the audience does get into the mind-set a little too well, and thankfully the cast tend to go with the third line used, moving onto the next character's line. Otherwise they'd never have finished their first piece spoken.

Freeze is the finale - a game in which two of the team play out a scene, and the others can shout 'freeze' and swap in with them. In this instance the audience - and the technical manager, whose efforts and comedy timing have already enhanced the show - are offered the chance to join in instead / as well.

The changes are best when they focus on the physical position each is in, which dispenses with any need for a single ongoing plotline. Neale Dutton the technical manager, joins in the game once with a sound cue, but none of the audience ventures forward, perhaps put off by the difficulty of getting out of tiered seating.

Whatever the reason, it is probably for the best, as the cast are all experienced not only at improvisation, but at knowing when an idea, concept, gag, or scene has run its course, and stopping while they're ahead. The slight disappointment is that the show does also, finishing around 10 minutes early on the promised hour.

Cast Credits: (alpha order): Martin Cavannagh. Eliza Hooper. Tom Paul. Robin Stewart. Idil Sukah. Michael Whittam.

Company Credits: Director - Eliza Hooper. Producer - Amy Tweddle. Technical Manager - Neale Dutton. Company - The Improverts.

END

(c) Gill Smith 2007

reviewed Thursday 2 August 07 / Bedlam Theatre

Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2008