Paul Merton has been bringing his Impro Chums to Edinburgh for a very long time but now he’s back with the Fringe debut of a new paradigm, Paul Merton & Suki Webster’s Improv Show. Running for only ten days in the massive performance space of the Pleasance Grand, the husband and wife team alongside Kirsty Newton on piano, stalwart guest Mike McShane and special guest Charlotte Gittins from the cast of other Fringe improv hit Austentatious bring the comedy chops, while the audience pitch in with suggestions.
This show absolutely delivers the big laughs
There’s an expectation of solid entertainment when some of the top improvisers in the business gather to entertain and this show absolutely delivers the big laughs. Merton and Webster open the show by explaining the rules and warming up the crowd before the cast of four, ably assisted by the musical talents of Newton perform various sketches and games, some classic like the three-headed-expert, some newer like a skit where two astronauts go for a date on the moon entirely soundtracked by sound effects from the audience. With bizarre suggestions from the audience, we enjoy several hilariously absurd moments including detective drama ‘Rebus and the Plunger’, ‘Weatherspoons: The Musical (featuring Zombies)’, and Merton struggling to identify his allocated job – putting stickers on bananas using snail-trail as glue.
The cast are clearly having a great time with the silliness and that joy is infectious. Each of them delight in making each other laugh and there are many asides and digressions from the established sketches but this only goes to show how confident each of them are as performers. A true standout is Gittens who not only holds their own against three giants of improv but manages to elicit some belly laughs from each of them with some perfectly delivered bon mots.
