fringe: improvise to go

The folks from Dungeons and Improvisations Adventure Show returned this year with their follow up show, Improvise to Go... which is about as loosely based around Monopoly as the previous show was loosely based around Dungeons and Dragons.

But when you have a troupe of improvisers, "loosely" is all you really need to start the ball rolling.

The audience selected two main characters... Michael and Aaron... and named them Sergei (or Sir Gay, depending on your pronunciation) Stumpy Goomba (yeah, it was a mashup of about three suggestions) and Everard Hornblower who took the name (in the show at any rate) from another character's grandmother and her unfortunate trumpet accident.

And the themed Monopoly game was Fairy Tale Monopoly... which meant that we were playing in a fairly similar universe to the previous show, but the two seriously could not have been more different.

Just like last time there were moments that were hysterically funny... and more than a few of those moments were courtesy of Craig and Curtis who were the Captain Sparkle and the Hippogriff respectively in the previous show, but this time around were a rather talented horse and a very weird hedge witch. I really want to be in the audience when Curtis gets to be a main character in one of these shows, because he's been brilliant both times, he's sharp as a tack and able to invent these wonderful characters at a moment's notice.

This time around there were a couple of different faces (or at least folks that I don't remember from last time), one of whom was Callum who not only maintained a flawless Scottish accent as Lord McFlobby-Wobby or McFlurry or Mc something anyway, but is also a very handsome gentleman.

I also find it amusing to watch director/actor wrangler/score keeper and, for the purposes of this show, banker, Joshua and his reaction to the actors as they try and wrestle the runaway story to the ground... it's a little bit like a live directors commentary, communicated entirely through expressions... and often made me laugh as much as everything else that was going on.

To be honest, I kind of liked the format they used for the previous show where the audience all wrote down suggestions of names, animals and objects and then Joshua used them throughout the show whenever a new character was introduced... it made for some incredibly odd scenarios and wonderfully wacky characters, whereas the Monopoly inspired plus and minus money idea didn't feel like it added as much in the moment.

But in essence it was a framing device for the show and didn't really interfere. And it certainly didn't stop them from being hilariously funny.

Oh, and I just found the description for tonight's show on their Facebook page...

It is a simpler time, women do not have to worry about finding the right guy, they just need to be captured by a mythical beast, rescued and then live out marriage and child birth. But not all is well in the kingdom of Happy Town, when the brave and beautiful Sergei Stumpy Goomba threatens to end the tyranny and danger the citizens will be plagued by laziness and have no need to strive towards anything.

It is up to Lord McFlaggen-stein and the shape changer Everard Hornblower to make sure that tyranny and danger survive through subcontracting monsters and bandits. With the guidance of an incredibly insane witch though, one princess will rise up, standing up for her own belief and find that not only can women save the day, but find love without kidnap.

Crazy... but brilliant once again!

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