Reviewed by Rebecca Stub­bing.

Fri­day the 13th was the per­fect occa­sion for NO SLEEP, a joy­fully chaot­ic improv show presen­ted at this year’s New Zea­l­and Improv Fest­iv­al.

The show began at 9:30pm on the won­der­ful Stage at BATS Theatre, and the slightly sleepy audi­ence were imme­di­ately reas­sured by the per­formers not to worry, we were all here at the theatre for a slee­p­over and we could now chill out in the com­pany of friends.

Vic­tor­ia Mae Wat­son Sepe­jak and Chant­al Lim have trav­elled all the way from Toronto, Canada to present their double-act show here in Pōneke, adding some inter­na­tion­al flair to the lineup of the Improv Fest­iv­al. The pair made a jaunty entrance to the stage wear­ing cosy look­ing pyja­mas and opened the show by declar­ing how tired they were.

Improv fans will be no stranger to the format of their show, which involved Lim and Sepe­jak tak­ing turns telling true mono­logues, and then per­form­ing scenes inspired by the mono­logue. Per­haps it’s their Cana­dian improv train­ing, or per­haps it was the fact that it was, as they declared, “4:30am our
time”, but the scenes were ener­get­ic, play­ful, and not like any improv I’ve seen before.

They truly lived up to the prom­ise of a fun slee­p­over with friends, as the con­nec­tion between Lim and Sepe­jak shone through the whole per­form­ance. They were extremely in tune with one anoth­er, and would pick up on small moments of com­edy with­in scenes, and draw them out into longer
games. As an audi­ence mem­ber at an improv show, the vibes between per­formers are always really key to your enjoy­ment of the show, and the real-life friend­ship between this pair was evid­ent through­out and provided the warm heart of the show.

Even in the scene in which they played a moth­er and daugh­ter who kept prank­ing each oth­er with ketch­up into think­ing the oth­er was ter­ribly
injured, some­how Lim and Sepe­jak kept the audi­ence on their side.

For a show with only two per­formers on stage, they did well to fill up the space, util­ising the back doors, the stairs, and even crawl­ing all around the ground at vari­ous points in the show. As the halfway mark was passed, you could see the jet-lag start­ing to settle in a little bit, with both Lim and Sepe­jak start­ing to acci­dent­ally walk into the wooden boxes on stage with increas­ing
fre­quency. They covered up each one either in-world or by break­ing the 4th wall and bring­ing the audi­ence in on the joke. The boxes ended up being almost the third per­former in the show.

All in all, NO SLEEP was exactly what you’re look­ing for in a late night improv show. It was fun, it was silly, and it was all about friend­ship.