My only experience of the confessional comes from mafia films, but after The Maydays’ brilliantly funny afternoon show at the Underbelly, I might just start attending on a regular basis. Spinning deliciously convoluted comedy from confessions submitted by that day’s audience, The Maydays combine the feel of a late-night game of truth or dare with anarchic improvised comedy.
As both observers and participants in the show, the audience are treated as members of the congregation in the Church of The Maydays and their sins absolved through the improvisational comedy of this talented and amusing troupe. Confessions about anything – from the secret to the salacious – are submitted anonymously by the audience before the show and selected randomly by the performers, who then have to improvise comically on the spot.
Improvised comedy can sink or swim on the quality of the audience and, whilst a show like this can be by its very nature completely different from one day to the next, The Maydays seem skilled enough performers to provide laughs, regardless of how forthcoming the audience are with their secrets. Accordingly, any low-points in the show were due to the performers having picked less funny or interesting confessions out of the lucky-dip bucket – an inherent risk, given the format, but one that seems a reasonable one to take.
The show mixes the classic improvised sketch with rhythm and blues musical comedy (lyrics made up on the spot, of course) to achieve an excellent balance between creative, innovative entertainment and more traditional fare.
The show is saved from any sense of monotony by variation within the format; the performers extracted a live confession from one unlucky audience member and riffed off this extensively – again, this is where such a show could fail without willingly submitted and amusing anecdotes in supply.
Overall, ‘Confessions’ is an excellently structured show featuring some very talented performers. Improvisational comedy carries the risk of failure at the best of times but this troupe deftly avoided any pratfalls with an intelligent and adept show.
