Edinburgh Fringe 2017
Men with Coconuts
Men with Coconuts
Genre: Comedy, Improvised Theatre
Venue: La Belle Angele
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
4 men, 1 hidden on a piano take us through some highly impressive improvisations with formats that include the first meeting of two people who are in the audience and a 20 minute improvised musical from the audience that show they are adept, expert and hilarious in the arts of audience manipulation and comedy.
Review
Queues for free events are always a good thing. The fact that this queue stretches almost to the Cowgate makes it a very, very good thing and I thought we might be in for a bit of a treat – we were. From the very beginning right through to the end this was one of the best groups of improvised comedy I have seen for a while – and I do get out a bit.
There are the set ups which, let’s be fair, seem free and open but actually help to restrict you and give the performers a bit of a help. This leads to a more comforting period of time in which they can get in some stock work but expand it out to suit the audience.
I loved the whole thing about the couples. This is where they found a couple, got a few details and then improvised the scene of their first date, with both holding a rubber chicken to squeeze when they agreed that this was what had happened and both holding a horn to say when they got it wrong. There was some really good comic moments that were added to by getting it right or wrong.
Almost always managing to walk the fine line between taste and adult, this is not a show to bring the kids to but it is a show worth visiting in your lunch hour to cheer you right up, if the morning has just not gone well.
The 20 minutes musical at the end called Dogs, a title suggested by the audience, was a shining example of how to shoe horn your format into a new set of circumstances. That it worked so well is a testimony to the performers and made for a very decent hour in their company.
With the minimum of set – just three chairs, and the music offstage that helped greatly and added to the feel that this was very polished the experience of these performers and their abilities shone through. I left with skip in my step and a desire to get back and see them sometime again in the future. If you have the time, they have the ideas, all they need is…
