Do you have any regrets about your life? Celebrating ten years as a company, The Maydays pose questions to the audience about the last ten years of their own life: whether you have any regrets, significant moments or simply what to confess what you were like. The Maydays then select a story and bring it to life before everyone’s eyes.
You’re absolutely guaranteed a laugh and with a Brighton audience there’s never a dull moment.
The show opened with energy and enthusiasm, each performer committing themselves to any role that they happened to fall into. A confession about an awful haircut that looked like a mushroom was transformed into an exciting musical number called ‘Mushroom Girl’ – the following day I found myself singing this catchy tune!
In the first half of the show The Maydays alternated between improvised songs and scenes, relying on each other to create believable scenarios with each given story, every scene accompanied by live music. From the very start you can tell that the whole performance is completely improvised, and that’s what really works in The Maydays favour. While many improvisation groups rely on some form of structure, the performers threw themselves into a situation that would be daunting for any audience member. A special mention has to go to Katy Schutte who was effortlessly funny from beginning to end and while at times I felt the acting was a little over overdramatic, I was drawn to the naturalistic qualities that she embedded into the performance. The second half of the show was more engaging as this time the audience were asked directly by the performers about their prospects for the future. One member of the audience expressed a hope to be healthy which was transformed into a montage of scenes of impressive physicality and characterisation.
With a total run time of about an hour, an interval wasn’t really necessary. The tickets are little pricey and I came away wishing I was given more, especially as there was enough material generated to fill the hour. If you have the money, however, I would definitely recommend seeing The Maydays. You’re absolutely guaranteed a laugh and with a Brighton audience there’s never a dull moment…
