Five experienced improvisers each request an audience suggestion, ranging from an item found in an attic to anyones favourite chocolate bar, and on the spot create characters and a play to interlink their lives. Unfortunately, this flimsy formula means The Spontaneity Shops production falls far below the bar set by other Fringe improv groups.
On this particular evening, I was presented with a bumbling student frantically cramming for his final exams, a ditsy American Valley girl who wants to be a dentist but is scared of dashing her parents hopes that shell be an actress, a criminal stamp-collector who cannot exhibit his collection for fear of being identified as the notorious stamp killer, a hard working chocolate sculptor suffering from excruciating toothache and a perverted picture framer who slips erotic self-portraits behind his customers watercolours. These unlikely acquaintances were woven rather loosely together through a series of monologues and the tale was concluded with a lazy perhaps it was all just a delirious pre-exam day-dream after all.
Implausible plots can easily be forgiven in improv if the timing and pace of the piece is maintained. However, the frequent pauses and narrative inconsistencies in this play were utterly unforgivable. Moreover, the lack of nervous energy, expected whenever one actor has no idea where another actors decisions will take him, made it hard to tell how much really was improvised.
For some reason, the performers never interacted with one another onstage. This unspoken rule was taken to the absurd lengths that one would speak to an imaginary version of anothers character while that person waited silently in the wings. The monologues, even if individually entertaining, grew tiresome as it became clear each characters waffle had little relation to the narrative, only a vague hope that someone else would direct the play towards a suitable conclusion.
Unforgivably sloppy and only accidentally amusing, this is not one to recommend. With improvisational masterminds like The Improverts and One Night Stand around, dont waste your money on what is little more than an actors warm-up exercise.
