BRIGHTON FRINGE: It’s a Trap! The Improvised Star Wars Show – The Rotunda Theatre, Bubble

Creators: MissImp CIC

Best Improv Show Finalist at Leicester Comedy Festival 2022

Spontaneous fun with the force comes to Brighton Fringe for one night only in this intergalactic-inspired improvised show. MissImp bring their own rebel alliance from Nottingham, with a crew prepared to deliver Jedi jokes and Jawa japes. The action is made up on the spot so we’re in for a different wild stellar ride every time. If you enjoy Star Wars and are inspired by improv, this is very likely the show for you. But even if you’re not so hot on identifying droids, or don’t know your father from your fated enemy, there is still storytelling and humour aplenty.

The audience takes much delight in the satisfying opening sequence that mirrors the start of the classic films. This is longform narrative-based improvisation so the cast ask for suggestions to help them build their improvised show. They ask for numbers from the audience which situates the action within the timeline of the Star Wars franchise. They then ask for the name of a planet. This planet is also one in the Star Wars system, which you might miss if you have not familiarised yourself with your star charts lately. It could have been fun for this planet to be made up so we are all starting in the same unknown territory, but tonight’s choice is Kamino – an established planet of endless oceans and storms.

These are clearly a highly entertaining crew of improvisers and a number of them are excellent at providing spontaneous hilarity that also advances the action. The scenes between bounty hunter and droid are joyful to watch, as are two Sith Lords stuck in a submarine. However, unfortunately the narrative gets sucked down an APR wormhole when wavy arm underwater creatures find a credit card belonging to the light side and use their complex cloning equipment to multiply the card for a scam. It seems a bit of a waste of what else might have been achieved with a whole cloning factory at their disposal. When Princess Leia has trouble allowing Luke to take the card they’ve come to the planet to collect, things get a little stuck. But the commitment of the cast to keep waving their arms and carrying on is to be highly commended.

It’s debatable whether or not the rigid timeframe and location within the franchise is strictly necessary for this show. For intense followers of the ways of the force, perhaps they’d want to see these restrictions, but for the majority of people who are just looking for a fun improvised show with hilarity and genre-based joy, it arguably doesn’t feel necessary to be so limiting with the imagination. With a bit more room, allowing them to freely play across the whole franchise, this show might reach even higher heights. This time it is somewhat disappointing to see no lightsabers, but this show overall brings a great deal of laughter and is a very satisfying improvised force to be reckoned with. For an escape into an area of space, where a whole host of fun hilarity will likely ensue, enter the orbit of It’s a Trap! The Improvised Star Wars Show.