Improvised movie fun in a theatre

Mischief Movie Night, New Theatre, Cardiff ★★★★★

IMPROV is nothing new in the comedy world.

Pioneering outfit the Comedy Store Players first blazed a trail out of London’s comedy scene more than 30 years ago and Whose Line Is It Anyway brought the art form to our TV screens for a decade in the 80s and 90s.

Latterly, Comedy Store Players’ pioneer Paul Merton has toured his Paul Merton’s Impro Chums show for the last decade to great success,

Mischief Theatre’s new show Mischief Movie Night looks set to keep that grand tradition going.

The premise is simple – the comedy theatre company who rose to prominence with The Play That Goes Wrong on stage and BBC TV Christmas Specials, Peter Pan Goes Wrong and A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong, improvise a movie of your choice. You suggest a genre, location and title and Mischief Theatre’s improvisers bring the show to life, complete with rewinds, fast forwards and a tailor-played live score.

Of course, the beauty of improvised show is that no two nights are the same and the humour is derived from the supreme flights of fancy each audience conjures up through their outlandish suggestions.

Hence the reason why in the case of our collective crowd, after a number of suggestions were put to a vote (a hilarious effort in itself ) the eight-strong Mischief team improvised a Disney/ Kung-Fu hybrid set in Pontypandy (yes, the hometown of Fireman Sam) with chainsaws, Dirty Dancing and a talking lasagne.

And that is just scratching the surface of the unbridled madness that ensued.

In charge of proceedings was a director who controlled the action, pausing, rewinding and pushing the ensemble cast to even greater heights courtesy of a few curveball suggestions, which only added to the anarchy and the humour.

If the audience’s uproarious reaction was any measure then you could only surmise that this is a blockbuster that is set to run and run.

Mischief Movie Night is pure escapist joy and one of the funniest nights out I’ve had in ages.

Go experience it for yourself.

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