An Improbable Musical – Royal & Derngate, Northampton

Josie Lawrence with Adam Courting and Janet Etuk in An Improbable Musical at Royal & Derngate, Northampton. Picture: Marc Brenner

An Improbable Musical continues at the Royal & Derngate, Northampton until 5 March 2022.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

Billed as ‘theatre as live as it gets’, An Improbable Musical couldn’t be more aptly titled. Armed initially with tiny notebooks but undeniably sizeable wit, this incredibly talented cast of five (on press night, having lost two of their company to dreaded Covid isolation) collaborate on an array of comedically haphazard scenes and musical numbers, improvised in front of the very audience which gives them the basis for their material.

The start of the performance sees the cast members informally probe the audience about a place near where they live that means something to them, a word that ‘makes their mouth happy’ and, finally, the first line of a chapter in a theoretical future book they may write.

These three simple contributions form the cornerstones of the show, though the frequency and nature of their involvement intertwined with the remainder of the off-the-cuff storylines is neither predictable nor overdone. A memorable highlight came from Josie Lawrence cleverly redirecting the line “The house is on fire, and this time it wasn’t my fault”, from the intended comedic vein in which it was suggested by an audience member, into the poignant lament of a recently single mother reflecting on the breakdown of her relationship.

Despite issuing a caveat at the start of the show that the very nature of improvisation means some characters may appear once and never again whilst others might feature repeatedly, the company managed to create a loosely linked plot where most key characters were revisited and their storylines wrapped up into a semblance of a narrative. There were, admittedly, occasional moments where the pauses felt a little too long as the actors seemingly waited for each other to drive the story forward, but in totality the random and somewhat arbitrary style of the show undoubtedly delivered the quick wit and humour for which top-drawer improvisation is often most known.

Though the entire cast collaborated superbly, bouncing off each other naturally and swiftly creating background features and lyrical support to each other’s devised dialogue and song, special mention must be afforded to both Ruth Bratt and Niall Ashdown.

Bratt in particular commanded the stage throughout, whether as the principal character of a scene or spontaneously portraying a creatively formulated polystyrene swan in the background, and also demonstrated the greatest versatility in the range of characters she became. Ashdown’s chosen characterisations, though perhaps more muted by comparison, were no less sharp and delivered continual one-liners that elicited laugh-out-loud moments from the audience.

Overall an excellently crafted evening of entertainment, kept exciting for any returning audience members, and presumably cast alike, by the thrilling premise of no two shows being the same (Lee Simpson directs). If there was any downside it would be the fact that some parts of the dialogue were simply inaudible due to so much laughter from the audience – but an excess of joy is, of course, no complaint at all.

Sorcha Exworthy