After a weekend full of improv for the participants of The Edinburgh International Improv Festival, in came the All-Star Armando team to finish the festival off with a bang! Consisting of performers: Keiko Agena, Alex Berg, Lilan Bowden, Todd Fasen, Alex Fernie and Jiavani along with a couple of invited guests from other productions within the festival.
As with any improv show there can be a fine line between creating a priceable show and producing something that can be compared to a bunch of performers playing warm up games. A structure is needed but not so much that the show is scripted, something to work from and ground the performers without losing the audience’s trust. In this case the cast’s structure came in the form of a chosen word from the audience and a guest actor spouting an improvised monologue around the chosen word. The story given in the monologue would then be the team’s prompts.
I will admit I was a little concerned about this set up after hearing the first guest’s monologue. Her chosen word was Asthma, but instead of creating a monologue around asthma she repeated the word a few times and then went on about eczema and not allowing her son much candy… perhaps I misunderstood the task at hand or the need for this chosen word, but it seemed from the faces around me I was not the only one. This being said, what the cast created from this was indeed very funny, unhinged and they took apart that monologue to create some very amusing skits. Their second guest also failed to use the chosen word from another audience member, but their monologue at least made sense and what ensued was a brilliant mix of: gremlins, caring drug dealers and an inability to wear belts.
This team works well together, and you can genuinely say that what they are creating is indeed improvised. It has that wackiness that wouldn’t make it past the drawing board for a legitimate scripted piece but works well within the moment. They have clear signals to one another for when a scene ends/ begins and for the most part work like a well oiled machine with no time for pondering what comes next or sloppy actor changeovers, you can tell they all trust one another.
The team was made up by entirely American performers which unfortunately meant that we did get quite a few terms/ themes that may not be understood here in scotland. This did mean that a few of the jokes would make very little sense to local audience members without added context such as mentioned American games and collectables.
What I particularly enjoyed was that the performers felt comfortable enough to challenge each other if part of a story didn’t make sense, catching them off guard but in a playful manner. They also brought back story lines throughout linking the individual scenes together here and there giving the show more of a flow.
Overall, this was a very fun show, complete with a very talented set of improv actors however I would recommend a different prompt structure and perhaps a catering of references to the audience local to the theatre space.
Reviewer: Beth Eltringham
Reviewed: 23rd March 2025
North West End UK Rating:
Rating: 4 out of 5.
