Myself and Mrs Hatter took another welcome return to live theatre, to review Showstopper! – an improvised comedy musical theatre show which first started in 2008.
Alan Meggido and Dylan Emery have created an innovative production that changes every single night. Billed as no two shows ever being the same, unpredictability is key! Starting at the Edinburgh Fringe, the show has toured much of the UK and had a successful West End run, even winning an Olivier Award.
In for a Tweet
Apparently creating a new musical at short notice for Mr Cameron (Mackintosh, not David), the cast have around seventy minutes to create a coherent story with ballads, raps and showtunes along the way.
As with all live entertainment, the Showstopper! team have had to adapt to the Covid climate. Where once the audience would shout out suggestions, technology now replaces the hoots and hollers. We were encouraged to text in our ideas or tweet them before and during the performance, with a shortlist of ideas put forward for approval through applause. This worked well, although I can imagine it creates a different atmosphere having audience members able to shout out the silly, strange and surreal suggestions. I miss the buzz of truly interactive live theatre but understand the need to, well, improvise in the circumstances.
We were keen to get involved and suggested words and ideas throughout. In an email before arriving at the theatre, we were encouraged to send in any ideas we had. However, on arrival it became clear that only very specific themes were needed – namely a setting and a musical style or composer. From the suggestions put forward from the audience, our show featured a distinctly local flavour and was based at Betty’s tearoom. References to York Dungeon, the Minster and other local hotspots were real crowd-pleasers.
Red is the New Black
A smart but simplistic set helped the audience focus on the action, and the cast looked sharp in their black and red ensembles…
The performance ran like a well-oiled machine, and the laughs came thick and fast. Some previous runs have featured celebrity guests including Matt Lucas and Jim Bowen (of Bullseye fame!) No such cameos here, but the show didn’t suffer without them. The performers we saw all exude energy and have that razor-sharp wit and timing that makes for a frantically fun evening. Vocals don’t take a backseat either; every cast member could sing well and showed a range of styles.
Sticky Buns
On this blog I mainly review family attractions and shows. Showstopper! has won awards for best entertainment and best family show, although I wasn’t sure initially how suitable it would be for younger children. As we arrived at the theatre, a song was playing that regularly mentioned intercourse (presumably a word from the audience at a previous show) During the performance the cast sang I Want to do You!, spoke of sex in a York Dungeon cell, and there were more cake-themed innuendos than an episode of Bake-Off.
For this reason, I would advise caution with younger children – by it’s very nature the show is devised based on suggestions from the audience, and could go in any direction! Interestingly, the team do also have a children’s show, The Showstoppers’ Kids Show. We haven’t seen it but it is no doubt more suitable for younger family members.
Edit – I’ve since seen that the show is recommended for ages 12 and over which seems right for the possible themes and content. The ‘best family show’ award may well have been the Kids Show but I can’t find any further details on that.
Freshly Baked?
If I’m being critical, we both felt that certain parts of the show seemed more manufactured than expected. Again, only two key areas of suggestions were actually invited – plus a title for the show – with the rest of the content shaped around those. It would be a tall order to fully improvise a musical from scratch, and we weren’t expecting that, but it felt like parts of the show were pre-planned and only took in a few very specific ideas and themes. The songs were snappy and well put together, but perhaps suffered from being too polished to actually seem genuinely improvised. I hope that we’re wrong though, and that the performers just excel at quick thinking!
Musical choices felt like safe bets too; with Hamilton and The Greatest Showman for example being popular but obvious. Yes, these apparently came from suggestions but I would’ve liked to see some more obscure and unusual words and ideas used. I can only compare this to improvised non-musical shows I’ve seen at comedy clubs, where comedians and actors can literally take any word or idea and craft it into a sketch, with the more surreal ideas getting the biggest laughs.
The spoken sections certainly felt fresher and more spontaneous but the songs, at the very core of a musical, felt like they could all feature in every show with a few swapped words and phrases. However, in an interview in The Guardian, the cast claim that the show is completely improvised, and I truly hope this is the case. I guess we’d have to see the show again to make a fair judgement on that.
Minor quibbles aside, it was still a riot of fun and the one-hour and ten minutes flew by! The performers are no doubt immensely talented, and the show is heading back to the West End soon for what I’m sure will be another popular run.
MAGIC RATING
VALUE FOR MONEY
OVERALL
Tickets can be booked on the Showstoppers! website or at each respective theatre. Our performance was also livestreamed on YouTube, and another livestream is planned during their Taunton run in July (details on the website and social media channels) https://showstopperthemusical.com/
Disclaimer: Tickets were provided for this event, however all opinions are honest and are our own.
Review Wizard 