By Juliette Paoli, Third Year Modern Languages
Booking my tickets for Showstopper! The Improvised Musical, I literally did not know what to expect. Even though the title was explicit enough, it is quite amusing to admit that I had paid to go and see a musical I didn’t know anything about, nor the plot, nor the musical style, nor which actors were going to perform. And to think that the cast had no clue either made it even more thrilling.
As every light was still on in the Bristol Old Vic, a phone started ringing in the room. Naturally, everyone checked if it was theirs before understanding that it was actually the red telephone on stage. On the other end was an impatient producer demanding a new musical in less than two hours. The man who picked up the phone presented as a worn-out musical writer who was now desperately calling the audience for suggestions. This was the moment when the musical connoisseurs in the audience started shouting famous production names to inspire songs and dances throughout the play.
For the 28th January’s creation, people chose to set the scene in a clown school, featuring passages in the style of Six, The Book of Mormon, Cabaret, and Grease. Since every Showstopper night is a premiere, here is my exclusive review of the freshly made-up musical Big Foot.
First of all, I was absolutely amazed by the performance of the cast — Jonathan Ainscough, Ruth Brett, Justin Brett, Pippa Evans, Andrew Pugsley — and their real director on stage, Dylan Emery, also embodying the musical writer and playing the guitar. They all succeeded in creating a hilarious two-hour comedy using minimalistic decor and even less instructions. One of the best signs of this success is the theme song they came up with during the opening number ‘Ha ha, he he, come on and laugh at me!’. They did many reprises of it during the show, and it definitely got stuck in your head after the end.
More generally, every song was a hit, they did not miss a single beat thinking about lyrics, nor any attempt to make us laugh. I admire this incredible skill to come up this quickly with lyrics as soon as the piano and drums start playing a melody. The two musicians on stage also played a great part in making this musical a success switching styles between an operatic Sweeney Todd song, and the dark Hades-rock about this mysterious night in Illinois.
As the plot was set in a clown school and this show is advertised as a comedy, we were in for a treat. The audience was introduced to two clown teachers, sharing a secret about a performance in Illinois, and three thoroughly-selected students, two of them also with a dark past and one simply quirky. During the intermission, the spectators were invited to submit ideas for the second half under an Instagram post. The actors used some of them for the great satisfaction of the public finding out that the Illinois secret was the teachers kissing on stage and that this student did not really kill her parents with laughter.
However, during the second half, the musical writer on stage literally had to stop the show several times to re-create a dynamic when it was stalling. Sometimes, you could feel that they had a hard time choosing what plot to follow from the lot of ideas they received, so they needed some breaks and nudges from the director to orient them. For example, during an early scene a student asked who the fourth chair was for, as they were only three. On the side of the stage, the director, playing the musical writer, stopped the scene to suggest that this school was almost culty. It led the teacher to answer ‘Jesus’ and someone commented ‘Oh yeah the funniest of them all!’, which started exhilarated laughter in the room, including mine.
Overall, I loved how the storytelling became deeper when they were examining humour’s function and roots within one’s past and pain. I would like to retain the sentence ‘Humour is a serious business.’ to sum it all up. In my opinion, it is the best self-reflective comment possible about comedy while performing it. It brought this meta-dimension to the story, even more interesting knowing that every single one of these professional actors broke character on stage while embodying tacky decor elements — for example, a statue with a broom held as a penis.
Coming out of the theatre, I overheard groups wondering whether the people suggesting things at the beginning were paid or not. I think that, for a Showstopper night, it is worth suspending your disbelief and enjoy a good humoristic time.
Laura Sawyer
Showstopper!: The Improvised Musical gives two last performances at the Bristol Old Vic, this Friday 30th January and Saturday 31st of January, the latter will be decided by children! It is also a recurring show in West End London Cambridge Theatre.
Thanks again to Music Theatre Bristol for the opportunity to get those seats.
Will you go and see Showstopper!?
