A high concept art-prank of a show, with mixed but sometimes sublime results.
“I wanted to be an impediment this year,” wails a disconsolate Luke Rollason, who for the third year in a row is expected to perform his act while being interrupted by a series of increasingly unhinged gremlins.
Simon Munnery has a very good joke about art and comedy, and the Venn diagram between. Can comedy ever be art? Can art be comedy? John-Luke Roberts’ concept, inspired by German clowns, pushes very hard on the overlapping circles. It has to be said though: some of the acts really don’t look like they’re having much fun.
The idea is brilliant. Performers attempt their usual sets while being distracted by a cavalcade of nonsense. This is chosen via a wheel mounted on the back of Ben from year 10, who is here on work experience. Ben becomes a lot bustier than your standard male intern later in the show, when reality fully breaks down and the show reaches its high point of mania.
The first act, a charming stand-up called Derek Mitchell, has a beautiful and very funny story about meeting an American family on a train in Reading. The tension builds up, the details are vivid, and the punchline is funny and rewarding.
Or it would have been, had Mitchell not been continually harassed by his grandmother, staggering around the stage, falling over and breaking her hip, and offering him a series of entirely useless tips and words of reassurance.
Comedy is all about timing, and the chaos on stage deprives any hope of that. What we see instead – at least, for the acts who do still try to deliver their material – is a really interesting deconstruction of the art of being entertaining on stage. It’s like a glimpse behind the wizard’s curtain, a performer’s nightmare come to life, and a riot during which the usual rules are thrown out the window.
The other acts have it even worse. For the impediments are cumulative. Thought doing stand-up with your gran was hard? Try doing physical comedy with your gran AND Terry Wogan. Thought doing physical comedy with your gran and Terry Wogan was hard? Try being a singer while being interrupted by your gran, Terry Wogan (who has his own theme tune), and two plague victim girls careering around the stage like the twins from The Shining gone medieval.
By the end, any delivery becomes completely impossible. Members of the audience queuing for the loo outside are brought in as an added distraction, a pregnant lady gives birth to eggs everywhere, and poor Sam Nicoresci looks like he’s on the edge of a full-on nervous breakdown.
This is a late-night show, but if anything it doesn’t feel like it’s on late enough. This is witching-hour stuff, the logic of after-midnight, and the audience here are by turns delighted, confused, and not quite drunk enough. Some of them, you suspect, actually want to hear the punchlines uninterrupted. They’re in the wrong tent for that.
At its best, Cabaret Impedimenta is a collective fever dream, a did-that-actually-happen portal to the comedy otherworld. Tonight’s show doesn’t quite reach those heights, but to paraphrase the ethos of the Alternative Comedy Memorial Society, failures don’t get any more noble than this.
Reviewed on 25th May
The reviews Hub Score
Mixed Results
