I saw four improv shows last night as part of the New Zea­l­and Improv Fest­iv­al. In the interests of brev­ity, here’s a joint review of all four.

Aus­ten Found 

Penny Ashton’s Aus­ten Found is a per­am­bu­la­tion into the world of one of Jane Aus­ten’s lost music­als – in this case, the story of one Vic­tor­ia Sandy­bot­tom, who is in des­per­ate need of a hus­band. Pick­ings, how­ever, are short – she is obliged to choose between Col­on­el Smid­get (sp??) – who unfor­tu­nately had an illi­cit encounter with a woman in France and is thus out­cast when his secret is revealed – and the vil­lage’s Vicar, who has an unfor­tu­nate tend­ency towards overt creep­i­ness.

(She ended up with the Vicar.)

Jane Aus­ten put to music is cer­tainly rather enter­tain­ing. I thor­oughly enjoyed the song between Vic­tor­ia (Ashton) and her best friend Deirdre (Lori Dun­gey) where the two women spec­u­lated about what it would be like to kiss their hus­bands once they got mar­ried – com­plete with a whole world’s worth of gig­gling.

If I’m truly hon­est, I did hope that the two women would end up togeth­er – con­sid­er­ing the unfor­tu­nate pick­ings in the town and my trem­u­lous ship­ping heart – but this is Aus­ten, after all, and that did not come to pass.

In all, Aus­ten Found was slickly impro­vised, with fab­ulous dick jokes, and some very well-executed songs. Lots and lots of fun.

Love Isth­mus: Dysto­pia Edi­tion

Christine Brooks’ Love Isth­mus is a truly bizarre and apo­ca­lyptic hour of improv, styled heav­ily off the Love Island tele­vi­sion show (or so I’m told).

“The water is get­ting high­er, the isth­mus is get­ting nar­row­er. Suc­cess means true love and sal­va­tion. Elim­in­a­tion means death. The power is in your hands.” Eight people are dragged from the Ashes of civil­iz­a­tion and giv­en the chance to live in the Cloisters – a sliv­er of civil­iz­a­tion untouched by dev­ast­a­tion. How­ever, only two people from that group can make it into the Cloisters – the two people who can hon­estly fall in love with each oth­er – and con­vince the audi­ence of such – in around about 45 minutes. Those who the audi­ence vote out get murdered by loom­ing guards, and the whole thing is a bit of a night­mare.

Love Isth­mus was an incred­ibly unique premise for an improv show, but fell slightly flat because it did­n’t push the envel­ope quite far enough. Though the set­ting was dysto­pi­an – the Cloisters’ Emper­or watched on from the audi­ence and the whole thing was very Hun­ger Games, it did­n’t really lean into the dark­ness of some of the moments.

What really became excit­ing was when the show broke away from its epis­od­ic mold – Leo, the crowd favour­ite – broke free from the guards try­ing to kill him and stabbed the Emper­or to death. We all rose up as one and star­ted cheer­ing for him – his char­ac­ter had grown from a few intro lines to someone who we could actu­ally care about.

It would be inter­est­ing to see Love Isth­mus with a few more of those moments of rebel­lion – though we, as the audi­ence, are ‘priv­ileged mem­bers of the Cloisters’ – what sort of char­ac­ters and moments could make us want to fight for those on the out­side?

The Greatest Show

Aman­da Buckley and Wiremu Tuhi­wai’s The Greatest Show pulls back the cur­tains on the Big Top and lets us into the final night of a trav­el­ling cir­cus, mere hours before they go out and per­form their final show as a com­pany togeth­er. It’s a massive ensemble piece, with a lot of dan­cing, some fant­ast­ic singing, and all the glit­ter one could ever want.

Buckley and Tuhi­wai led us through the show as the MC and the CM respect­ively, who were both try­ing to deal with the fact that their show (and their lives togeth­er) were about to be over. They kept everything at a good pace, lightened moments when they got too dark, and had fant­ast­ic energy togeth­er. (The sur­prise pro­pos­al between the char­ac­ters at the end was very sweet as well!)

We had Susie – the bearded woman – sing her tale, as well as Vladi­mir (a giant Rus­si­an man), a fire-breath­er, a con­tor­tion­ist and a whole host of oth­er eso­ter­ic char­ac­ters. While it would have been nice to have a slight devi­ation from this mold of story telling – to see the ensemble do more pieces togeth­er would have been nice – the whole show felt very genu­ine and had a lovely heart at its core.

Play­shop DEAD!

Play­shop’s spooky Hal­loween-themed show­case was MC’ed by Sam Irwin – who gal­li­vanted around the stage giv­ing out lol­lies to the audi­ence and the impro­visers – and helmed by Play­shop’s usu­al team – as well as a few spe­cial NZIF guests.

George Fenn also loomed behind the audi­ence, dressed as Jig­saw (from the Saw films), and occa­sion­ally imposed pen­ance upon the impro­visers.  Aus­tin Har­ris­on – in full regalia as a spooky skel­et­on – was made to spend all a lot of his scenes on the floor, while Jen O’Sul­li­van had to per­form as Santa Claus (in Octo­ber).

The even­ing cul­min­ated in Jig­saw drag­ging Jen off to Improv Hell for flout­ing one of his rules.

 

In all, a very good night indeed.