Directors: Adam Meggido and Ali James
Living in a time when everyone thinks they can run a marathon, it makes perfect sense to confine a body of performers and audience members in an old Victorian Music Hall for two complete days (and two more hours). There is a setting, there is a cast of characters, and there are two invisible directors instructing characters to do stuff. As the hours roll by, a weird alchemy bonds audience and players, encouraging actors to develop complex backstories for their characters and for actors to learn each others’ rhythms so they mesh effectively every time they come together.
There is the usual problem with improv, which is actors under pressure reaching for familiar tropes because saying something is much better than saying nothing, even if the something is very similar to what they said in their previous improv. There are, though, flashes of brilliance which are rapturously received by a very forgiving, very pro-performer audience. The improvised songs are amazing.
One of the attractions of this type of show is watching actors fall apart before the spectating masses, a sort of BDSM approach to performance. Whether through deft nap-management or because of their performative stamina, the falling apart isn’t apparent at the 20-hour mark. Instead, there is a three-part positive effect: first, the directors (Adam Meggido and Ali James, both with the considerable feather of Peter Pan Goes Wrong in their collective caps) identify the characters who are less well-developed and call on the relevant actors more frequently. Second, the comedian-actors work harder on character work if the comic muse fails them. And lastly, and delightfully, the performers not engaged as principal characters are much readier to be animated backdrops, and make for some truly inspired moments. A stage filled with marooned lobsters yearning for the sea is the best of many good moments so far enacted.
(To be continued…)
Runs until 10 March 2024
The Reviews Hub Score
Merry millennial masochism
