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Bristol Improv Presents... / PBH's Free Fringe

Watching actors improvise can be the most fun thing ever. In a way, it’s difficult not to have a good time. When things go wrong it’s funny, when things go right it can be wonderful. Whilst Bristol Improv are not the finest improv troupe to hit the Fringe, they certainly have skills. Props are central to their act, deciding not only an individual’s performance but the entire direction their story can take. A volcano was the central object on the day I visited. A volcano resting under a medieval city, ruled by a despotic king and his patricidal son. It was fun, there’s no doubt about that.

Yet the quality an improvised performance must have is energy. You can’t expect ad-libbed comedy material to sparkle evenly, but with the necessary pace the lines that don’t work can get swept up and quickly forgotten. Whilst some performers were clearly committed to the moment, others seemed to be lost, unable to tap into their colleague’s sense of the rhythm of each emerging scene. It meant that, often, the stand-out exchanges were the ones meta-comically questioning someone’s choice of phrase or prop, and whilst this kind of self-awareness is a successful comic technique it meant that the real moments of wit were undermined.

It’s significant that some of the best moments of comic ingenuity came from the lighting desk, cutting to black when a scene was flagging, or after a line best left isolated. Bristol Improv do know how to have fun together onstage, and to include the audience in it, but when the best jokes are about the things going wrong, something is, well, going wrong. Yet, such is the wonderful nature of improv – on the day you see them, they might be sensational. My suggestion is that they probably won’t be, but it will still be quite fun.

Reviews by James Macnamara

Zoo

Government Inspector

★★★★
Stand in the Square

Is Your Marmite Watching You?

★★
The Jazz Bar

Jazz Rite of Spring

★★★★
Underbelly, Bristo Square

Rachel Stubbings: Doing It for Himself

★★★
C venues - C nova

Cabaret Nova

★★★★
The Edinburgh Academy

West Side Story

★★★★★

Since you’re here…

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You can donate to the charity of your choice, but if you're looking for inspiration, there are three charities we really like.

Mama Biashara
Kate Copstick’s charity, Mama Biashara, works with the poorest and most marginalised people in Kenya. They give grants to set up small, sustainable businesses that bring financial independence and security. That five quid you spend on a large glass of House White? They can save someone’s life with that. And the money for a pair of Air Jordans? Will take four women and their fifteen children away from a man who is raping them and into a new life with a moneymaking business for Mum and happiness for the kids.
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Theatre MAD
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Acting For Others
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Performances

The Blurb

Bristol Improv steals the show with a showcase from the Fringe programme. An Unexpected Tale creates a fantasy adventure, and A Night of Noir creates our own film noir, all completely improvised!
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