Edinburgh Fringe 2022
Improvabunga!
The Watch This Improv Troupe
Genre: Comedy, Improvised Theatre
Venue: The Space at Niddry Street
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
“Returning from a sell-out, 16th annual run at Fringe, join the Watch This Improv Troupe as they take you on a 50-minute improvised movie adventure! In a world where movie plots are getting too predictable, one improv show dares to break the mould. You choose the genre, the subgenre, the setting and the title and they do the rest, creating a totally improvised show brimming with all your favourite movie tropes.”
Review
With the usual suggestions from the audience at the start, with a few innovative additions which take the form of buzzers that chosen audience members can activate during the performance to affect the show more in real time, there’s an edge of your seat feel to the proceedings.
We had chosen a horror film and the cast work seamlessly together, as all quality improv troupes should, to create a well-rounded and structured narrative, funny and credible characters, movie scenes, sets and sound effects. There were some genuinely spooky moments amongs all the comedy mayhem. This is an inventive cast more than able to think theatrically on their feet. Sharp one-liners, verbal and physical knockabout, side-swipes, gags and payoffs all are delivered with ease from a uniformly accomplished cast.
One or two of the improvised songs were a little too repetitive. Improv shows such as Shamilton become a breathtaking spectacle when the made up and sung lyrics scan, rhyme and seem to have been impossibly made up in the moment, resting upon an already known musical structure. – Repetition can dilute that. The songs are still very funny especially as they are belted out with 120% commitment and still end up delivering the goods.
It’s a thoroughly enjoyable comedy hour, clearly loved by the audience who were left wanting more. Well, there’s always another genre, another movie, another story the next night. This is an understandable fringe favourite.
I took my son to see this show and he loved every minute of hit. His comment on the way out was: “This was much better than the more expensive one we went to yesterday.” I won’t mention the name of that show. Improvabunga are more than worth the money and, with a different show each time, you might find yourself going more than once.
