Directors: Adam Meggido and Ali James
So, after 30 hours without sleep, is this cast of comedians still funny? Not as funny as they were. Sleep deprivation makes any human activity pretty slap-dash, and there are definite cases of actors zoning out, contributing to a scene by moving props around or babbling nonsense that may set out to be funny but gets lost en route. And that’s sort of the point.
Non-stop improv for 50 hours is designed for destruction-test comic riffs. The end of this extravaganza has something in common with blooper reels. There is an appetite for watching actors lose their lines, drop things, and walk into furniture. All that happens, and it’s sort of ok because performers and audience are suffering together, bonding, becoming a weird family in which forgiveness is a keystone.
There are lots of good things. The improvised songs, especially those sung by Lucy Trodd and Ruth Bratt. Mark Meer is extraordinarily elegant throughout, a great feat for a man operating on two days with no sleep. Seamus Allen is excellent value and does exemplary work holding the increasingly Byzantine plot together. There is a charming penguin-themed wedding, with the entire cast penguining, including the presiding minister.
Most impressively, at 11.00 am on Sunday, 40 hours into the show, there is a section specifically intended for children, and the whole-hearted engagement of everyone in the cast is amazing, and delightful, and well-aimed at a young audience. John Oakes provides an energetic and neatly executed slapstick routine, Justin Brett and Seamus Allen engage very young people in audience participation and improvisation without a trace of patronising. Or fatigue, for that matter.
The show gets increasingly ragged, the diffuse plot lines take up more and more space at the expense of gags and wackiness, and there are moments when everyone – directors, actors, audience – must question why they’re doing this strange and terrifying thing, but there is a bond, there is a commitment to getting to the end, and a strong sense of achievement in doing it, and it is a spectacle like nothing else. And when it finishes, everyone has earned enthusiastic applause and a very well-deserved sleep.
Runs until 10 March 2024
The Reviews Hub Score
Endurance Performance
