Upon sitting down to a cup of tea with the director of the Imps, Adam Mastroianni, the first thing that struck me was how earnest he was in his hyperbole. He looked me straight in the eye, and declared “you have never seen anything like this before, and you may never see anything like it again.” His quite frankly alarming level of excitement about the Imps new show, Hyperdrive, I initially put down to the fact that he’s from Ohio, and like his countrymen, inevitably gets a little bit too riled up for his own good.

However, as we begin to talk about the concept behind Hyperdrive, I can’t help but feel myself succumbing to a touch of Yankee overexcitement. The basic idea behind the show is an ingenious fusion of very fiddly technology with the brute imaginative strength of the Imps for making stuff up. On the night in question, LMH’s Simpkin’s Lee theatre will be rigged up with 3 large projector screens, a smoke machine, and a drone mounted camera. With this array of tools, the Imps intend to create fake tinder accounts, spontaneously serenade people over facetime, utilise facebook and text messages to create an interactive and immersive hour of improv, that will hopefully make you think about the increasingly integrated and connected society in which we live. If this ludicrous array of gadgetry sounds exciting, then just imagine how Mastroianni feels about it – “a big kid in a sandbox full of new toys”.

The one niggle that I had at the back of my mind about this pitch was that it might be fall back on ‘let’s all have a laugh at funny old pictures on someone’s facebook whilst they squirm in their seats’. However, for the Imps, this would go completely against what improv is meant to be about – a reciprocal and constructive relationship between improvisers and their audience – nobody is going to be made a fool of, and you only have to get involved if you volunteer to.

Adam goes on to expound the values of improv, as a tool which teaches people to lower their inhibitions, be freer in their creativity, work communally together to construct something amazing. In short, to stop saying no, and start saying “yes, and?”

Mastroianni thinks that the UK is still a long way behind the US when it comes to improv – the art has yet to find a consistent audience outside of certain corners of the Fringe, and certainly hasn’t managed to break into the mainstream. The real problem with improv in Britain is that it relies on generic parody to draw crowds – ‘improv Doctor Who’ or ‘improv Downton Abbey’. However, Mastroianni thinks this infantilises UK audiences and presumes they don’t have the imagination or the enthusiasm to confront the genre on its own terms – something which he’s hoping to change.

The magic of improv for the Imps comes from the transience of it, no two improv shows will ever be alike, and everyone gets out of it just what they bring to it. As Mastroianni relates, it’s a bit like “the positive version of a car crash”, a single, fixed moment in time where normality is thrown out of the window and audience and performers are thrown together in (hopefully hilarious) bedlam. Adam leaves me asking you all to embrace a little bit of that haphazard spontaneity of the form – “this is really cool, trust us, come along”. Who knows what might happen on the night.

Hyperdrive is on at the Simpkins Lee Theatre, 11^th-13^th Feb, 8pm.

Blair, Thatcher, Poll tax, political awakening, gentrification and the disillusionment which accompanies growing up; these are all themes, which made an appearance in Luke Wright’s What I Learned from Johnny Bevan at the North Wall last Friday.

This was well balanced by the occasional effortless slip into a ‘made-in-Chelsea’ styled accent of Tilly or Milly and Nick’s panic at being considered racist, just because by the time he reached university, he had only ever met two black people (an experience to which I could utterly relate, growing up in moderately rural Essex). Luke’s energetic performance was utterly transfixing and his presentation of the reality of university life powerfully accurate.

He touches on the socially promoted expectation that you will meet your friends for life at university, defining this as people that fulfil certain unachievable expectations in your head, only to realise that people everywhere are just people, and wherever you go, you will always need some football team to pretend to support. The images of 1960’s high rises towering in the background served to situate the audience in reality. These were not just comical characters of an imaginary world. The failure of Blair’s government was a miserable reality for many.

The journey of Johnny from a poetical political dreamer to a wrecked squatter, terrified by the idea of repeating the pitiful life of a previous generation, yet ultimately drawn to that fate because of political parties which had failed to listen to voices like his, was a hard hitting punch of the unfairness of life; the presentation of both Johnny’s dreams and ultimate desecration, a slap of reality for any current student and a reminder to keep firmly fixed in the ultimate weaknesses of mankind. Indeed this was no easy ride for the audience; we all left fairly beaten up. Johnny’s desperate call to Nick: “Does it own you? It owns me everyday?” paints a tragic picture of a disappointed idealist. But for such dreamers, the performance grants no clear answer, apart from a warning of overestimating the world around you.

To perform poetry sole in a number of different characters for a whole hour is an impressive feat by anyone’s standards. Luke was meticulous in this task. As he took his final bow, the lady next to me expressed surprise that anyone could have that much stamina. This genre, a hybrid of poetry and theatre, is reminiscent to some degree of the works of Shakespeare and medieval epic poems. Dynamically presented, all in iambics and with an ending as upsetting as any tragedy, Luke Wright, in view of the current political state, is a poet to watch. Indeed according to Johnny Bevan, there are only two categories: ‘shit’ or ‘proper’ – there is no middle ground. That being the case, this performance was proper.

★★☆☆☆

I left this performance feeling distinctly underwhelmed and plagued by a vague feeling of just having missed the point. On reflection, whilst the overall sparseness of detail and lack of exposition was a deliberate part of the intrigue, it is safe to say that Anthony Maskell’s Noose is simply not the most exciting piece of new writing currently on the Oxford drama scene.

The premise definitely had potential: a chalk and cheese couple living in social isolation whose odd (metaphorical) dance around the eventuality of one of them committing suicide is interrupted by the arrival of a blind, American pilgrim. The cryptic dynamic between Jacques (Ali Porteous) and Seraphine (Misha Pinnington) was at first difficult to pin down, and in the end its exploration was too fleeting to really hook or challenge the audience. A production as short as this one (45 minutes at most) demands sharply crafted interaction between its central characters and this unfortunately missed the mark.

That said, both Porteous and Pinnington embodied their characters convincingly – Jacque’s erratic restlessness contrasted effectually with Seraphine’s cold stillness – although neither role offered the opportunity for particularly outstanding performance. The blind pilgrim (Josh Dolphin) who entered their world in a seemingly innocuous fashion but whose presence within it became increasingly sinister, proved to be a crucial plot device.  The drama that unfolded in the last 15 minutes was at points quite compelling and some clever staging was used in order to achieve this – for example the scene that took place in total darkness was ironically one of the most engaging. Other decisions were questionable: Pinnington interacting with her back to the audience for several minutes was somewhat frustrating and inhibited the expression of her character’s growing unease.

The nature of the play’s resolution was clear from the start, although the twist at the very end might surprise you. So is Noose worth an hour of your evening? Perhaps. If you’re in the mood for something short and a bit obscure then it’s worth considering; if however you’re searching for slightly weightier drama that involves greater investment then this is one to avoid. 

★★★★☆

Student comedy can be notoriously hit and miss – the cliché of the profoundly unfunny and slightly self centred stand up comedian is well worn in the 21^st century. Cherwell is happy to relate that this term’s Revue show is not only a rip-roaringly hilarious night out, but manages to be fresh and bold with a relatively traditional form.

Bordering on the surreal, the sketches veer (occasionally haphazardly) through a diverse and striking array of comedic targets. There is a lack of the overarching, unifying narrative that has typified some of the Revue’s more ‘concept’ comedy in recent years, but this is not detrimental to Heavy Petting as a show. The lack of blackouts – which sometimes seem to demand applause or laughter from an expectant audience – make the sketches flow together much more naturally, linked by incidental music and very earnest laughter from the crowd.

This natural or organic style of sketch comedy really leaves room for the comedians to revel in their stage presences. The regular and forced guffaws of Jack Chisnall’s comedian persona making for a consistent thread in between the sketches – occasionally breaking the fourth wall in ways that stay just on the right side of the ‘edgy’ ‘post modern’ comedic voice. Alexander Fox also manages to summon forth a bizarre but hilarious self parody – desperately seeking the friendship of (and physical intimacy with) the audience.

Its at this point that I come to something of a dilemma as a reviewer. When I review a play, I can pad out a fair proportion of my word count with a synopsis of the events of the drama. If I were to do this with Heavy Petting, I’d basically spoil the majority of the jokes – it is part of the intrinsic nature of comedy, that like a magic trick, it relies on revelation and novelty. So, look away now if you don’t want to have one of the funnier sketches spoiled.

Still here? My highlight of this show was the phenomenal scandi-noir inspired Swedish version of Skins – entitled Skieoans [sic] where a group of teenagers bickered over twiglets and their love lives – made all the funnier by the stunningly shoddy accents on show, accompanied by apologetic shrugs as various comedians careered into cockney. Other highlights included Chesca Forristal’s impeccable portrayal of an alien, and Dom O’Keefe’s plagiarist Danny Dyer (we did warn you about spoilers!).

For fear of ruining the show for people that haven’t seen in yet, no more spoilers will be aired, but we strongly urge you to get a ticket for this sharp, 60-minute foray into a return to forms (sketch) for the Revue!