It wasn’t an auspicious start to The Curious Case of the Improvised Musical when the on-stage costume rail collapsed before the show had even begun. However, the Imps’ ‘Musical’ took off from this point keeping the audience enthralled and laughing for the entire performance.
The premise of The Curious Case of the Improvised Musical is that Agatha Christie, recovered from her “almost permanent state of, well, death!” has been commissioned to write a musical for the BBC. However, due to the distractions of Twitter she has run out of time and needs to improvise a story. The audience had to suggest various aspects of the plot before the show began, including the murder weapon, the location, character names and song title suggestions. The running motif in our production was the winter sport Curling, which provided much amusement for the audience, as the Imps had to weave not only the murder weapon of a curling broom into their plot but also keep the curling theme running throughout the production!
There were some stellar performances in the Imps cast last night. Vicky Hawley’s Agatha Christie delivered some fantastic one-liners and was able to mould her humour to the natural mishaps of improvised comedy. Her sardonic comments were brilliant compliments to the absurd yet hilarious action of the Musical and were proof of the genuine improvisation of the performance. For example, her reminder to her fellow Imps that they had named a character ‘Figglesworth Bigglesmith’ and then promptly forgotten this name. The men of the cast stole the show: Dom O’Keefe was fantastic as the “stupid Curling champion” Tallulah. He had fun reminding his fellow Imp, Tanner Efinger, of his occasionally moments of forgetfulness, however this added to the humorous atmosphere of the night. Their repartee was an integral part of the humour of the night.
My only caveat would be that the musical side took a backseat; you should not go to this performance expecting much that is in the musical genre. However, this is probably to be expected when characters have to improvise all the lyrics of their songs and the comedy undoubtedly should and did take centre stage. The on-stage band, however, should be applauded for their accompanying music. Overall, The Curious Case of the Improvised Musical was a thoroughly entertaining performance which will keep you enraptured all evening.
