A white­board greets us at the top of the stairs of BATS’ Dome The­atre.

10am — Danc­ing with Craig (R18). It reads. 1.45pm — Knit­ting with Craig (R18), then 8pm — Dave & Bryan Impov Thing.

And that is what we’re here to see (though I am par­tic­u­lar­ly tak­en by the con­cept of 12.45pm — Autop­sy for Begin­ners.)

We’re at the “Hataitai Bowl­ing Club” for an evening with our two hosts Dave (Austin Har­ri­son) and Bryan (Dylan Hut­ton), two mid­dle-aged Kiwi dudes who just real­ly want to use their vast expe­ri­ence and priv­i­lege to help solve the prob­lems of us com­mon folk. One’s a char­ter boat own­er, the oth­er runs ebikes on Welling­ton’s water­front, but togeth­er, they’ve got a wealth of knowl­edge to make all our lives bet­ter. Win­ning Octo­ber’s Late Night Knife Fight last year, the show is back, full length and packed full of famil­iar improv games that delight and amuse.

Look, you know the show’s fan­tas­tic, you’ve seen who’s in it. Both Har­ri­son and Hut­ton are vet­er­ans of the Welling­ton per­for­mance scene, bring­ing joy and charm to gigs across the city for a hand­ful of years now, and have phe­nom­e­nal rap­port as per­form­ers, bounc­ing off each oth­er excel­lent­ly through premise after ridicu­lous premise. For a show that relies a lot on its audi­ence, the ask-fors nev­er feel stag­nant and we are gen­tly chauf­feured through any moments of audi­ence inter­ac­tion — some­thing that I’m per­son­al­ly always trep­i­da­tious about!

Some par­tic­u­lar high­lights for me dur­ing this show includ­ed: Har­ri­son mak­ing it through the word “diver­ti­c­uli­tis” while speak­ing in a par­tic­u­lar­ly heavy French accent, Hut­ton’s absolute­ly ridicu­lous stature as a “Milo vam­pire”, and a scene about fam­i­ly pol­i­tics pref­aced with, “Sor­ry for what you’re about to see,” though believe me, I was gig­gling in my seat through­out.

The endear­ing “will they, won’t they” push-pull of this per­for­mance duo is high­light­ed through­out — nei­ther per­former feels par­tic­u­lar­ly like they’re act­ing as the leader, with the stage very well bal­anced for the dura­tion of the piece. This well-hewn chem­istry is one of the true draw­cards of the work — even in moments where there are stum­bles or jokes don’t land as expect­ed (hey, it’s improv!), the charm of the per­form­ers and their ban­ter with the audi­ence is a sol­id con­stant. I just real­ly enjoy watch­ing per­form­ers who get on well per­form with each oth­er, okay?

Gabe (Matt Hut­ton), is a very gift­ed 14-year old pianist who needs to be home by 9pm, and he pro­vides a whim­si­cal back­ing to each scene, while Scot­ty (Scott Max­im) is on the lights, and gifts us with the final ask-for of the night — a lit­tle spiel about how he ripped his pants for the sec­ond time this week — which Dave and Bryan turn into a bat­shit non­sense song to close out the show. Both pro­duc­tion roles are whol­ly incor­po­rat­ed into the nar­ra­tive itself, and often cause laughs of their own.

Pudgy Mediocre White Men Solve Your Prob­lems is (mostly)-duo improv at its best. Nev­er does the for­mat feel grat­ing or too appar­ent, and the skill of the per­form­ers with their mas­tery of the audi­ence is such a delight to be part of. Mag­ic has been made in Haitaitai Bowl­ing Club this week — and it’s some­thing you’ve got to get in on too.