Friday, December 5

Tag: Unity Theatre

Box of Frogs – Liverpool Improvisation Festival – Unity Theatre
30Apr By Caroline WorswickNo Comments
North West

Box of Frogs – Liverpool Improvisation Festival – Unity Theatre

This show is a fast-paced style of improvisation, for those of us who are old enough to remember ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway?’, you will get the idea of how this works.  No Clive Anderson, but they do short-form gymnastics in the same way as the ‘Whose Line…’ crew. They begin by asking for suggestions from the audience, and poor Robert Wilson whoever you are, you were the choice of child that someone didn’t like at school, and they played a game of ‘Story, Story, Die!’, where three of the company must keep a story going or die, a bit like it’s a knockout improv.  This is a good game to warm up the audience, as it shows off the skills of the improvisers and the speed of their reflexes.  To show off their improvised music, the ensemble pulled together a song about scabies c...
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Taxi Tales – Liverpool Improvisation Festival – Unity Theatre
30Apr By Caroline WorswickNo Comments
North West

Taxi Tales – Liverpool Improvisation Festival – Unity Theatre

Wing It Impro and their ensemble team improvise ‘Taxi Tales’, conceived and directed by Mark Smith, inspired by Raymond Carver’s short stories, and Robert Altman’s movie ‘Short Cuts’.  We have all been in the back of a taxi on a night out and discussed all manner of things, or even forgotten where we are staying, and the driver drives around until you can remember (that is one of my memories from back in the day!).  The team at Wing It Impro have this improvised show off to a fine art, as they examine the premise that anyone can climb into your cab, at any point of their life with their own tale to tell – ‘One Night On The Town’. Photo: Andrew AB Simple staging of chairs with the improvisers facing towards the back of the stage waiting for their turn to either drive the cab...
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From Dawn To Dusk – Liverpool Improvisation Festival – Unity Theatre
30Apr By Caroline WorswickNo Comments
North West

From Dawn To Dusk – Liverpool Improvisation Festival – Unity Theatre

As we waited for the show to begin, the haunting strumming of a guitar playing ‘The Sound of Silence’ sets the mood for this American mid-West show.  ImprompTwo, or Kathy and Joe Rinaldi have a passion for narrative improv, which brings another dimension to the festival.  Set at a time when Word War II is over, brother and sister Bobbie (Kathy Rinaldi) and Jack (Joe Rinaldi) are trying to keep the family farm running.  Jack sits outside a daybreak, it is his favourite time as the sun starts to rise, and he dreams of a day when everything will come together. Photo: Andrew AB This brother and sister team manage the farm together, but they are under the threat of the Government taking their farm from them, and after their father fought two World Wars, and Jack fought in W...
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Neil Curran’s ‘Café Amour’ – Liverpool Improvisation Festival – Unity Theatre
29Apr By Caroline WorswickNo Comments
North West

Neil Curran’s ‘Café Amour’ – Liverpool Improvisation Festival – Unity Theatre

Do you date?  Do you use dating websites?  A look into online dating on the modern world of love and romance.  Neil Curran has set the show in a French café so that it doesn’t sound so seedy, searching the audience for someone who is not an improviser to make it feel more authentic.  Well done Lucy for volunteering, you are about to be grilled about your dating life.  Lucy who is half Manc and half Liverpudlian, has been with James for twelve years, and they met on a dating website, although James prefers to say that they met through friends.  The thing that stood out for Lucy on his profile was that he found it funny when old people fall over - ok Lucy, we won’t judge you!  Asked about what her opinion on the secret to longevity in a relationship, her...
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Jungle of Emotions: Liverpool Improvisation Festival – Unity Theatre
29Apr By Caroline WorswickNo Comments
North West

Jungle of Emotions: Liverpool Improvisation Festival – Unity Theatre

Day three of the festival opens with a child friendly episode presented by Peng! Impro, where this improv company aims to help young people to be able to express emotions through laughter.  There are opportunities for interaction, so the children feel as though they are collaborating in the telling of the story. In the jungle, this German improv company attempt to re-create the sounds and feel of the jungle by asking the audience for ideas of an animal, and something that the animal can do in its spare time.  The suggestions were a monkey, and the monkey’s interest was to philosophize!   Mary Gerald (the monkey now has a name), is starting a new life a university in a few weeks’ time, but she doesn’t know what to study, her short list consists of philosophy, and engi...
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R.A.W.D / Loo Prov – Unity Theatre
26Apr By Kevin EcclestonNo Comments
North West

R.A.W.D / Loo Prov – Unity Theatre

As a part of the Liverpool Imrov Festival this double bill was opened by RAWD, a company of performers of different ages, genders, backgrounds and abilities. They soon had the audience in raptures of delight with some instant and visual sketches. The show starts with the performers asking for suggestions about a possible title for the show and jobs and places as inspiration for the sketches. Suggestions such as a Police Station, the surface of the moon, a dog walker (which brought spontaneous laughter) and bizarrely an ink squeezer in a squid factory. Interpretations were energetic and spontaneous, and much appreciated by this smallish audience in an intimate small theatre. Lasting for about 30 minutes the show consisted of a number of energetic and highly entertaining sketc...
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The Story Forge: Make Your Own Myth – Unity Theatre
5Apr By Stephanie WiswallNo Comments
North West

The Story Forge: Make Your Own Myth – Unity Theatre

Creative, fun and delightfully unique. If you are looking for a family fun show to suit all ages and really get yourself immersed into a show then look no further, the Rubbish Shakespeare Company has you covered with their hilarious and eccentric performance 'The Story Forge; Make your own Myth. As the title suggests, you the audience are involved in the creativity of what you see in front of you. Every person in the theatre was engaged, laughing and left with a smile. Two very talented actors with fantastic improvisation skills, comedy and physical theatre will immerse you, and especially those children in the audience in an engrossingly lively story using information, props and input from the audience. The show could go in any direction and trust me it does, this certainly isn't a sho...
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Imaginary Friends – Unity Theatre
4Apr By Kevin EcclestonNo Comments
North West

Imaginary Friends – Unity Theatre

As part of his current 2025 tour, award-winning writer and director Daniel Bye’s "Imaginary Friends" opened at the Unity Theatre in Liverpool on April 3rd. The show seamlessly transitions from a lively and engaging comedic introduction to a deep connection with the audience. Bye expertly constructs a nuanced framework that resists easy classification into a single genre. Embracing his identity as a TV comedian, the show starts in a traditional yet captivating manner, featuring a solitary figure, a microphone, and sharp observational humour that immediately draws the audience in. Bye begins with a trigger warning that the performance includes themes of grief and loss, toxic masculinity, the end of the world, profanity, and Piers Morgan. Throughout the show, he introduces imaginary friend...
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A Work in Progress – Unity Theatre
9Mar By Mark DavorenNo Comments
North West

A Work in Progress – Unity Theatre

Following a successful scratch night performance, Ladderman Collective literally take their work in progress to its next developmental level as part of the Up Next Festival at Unity Theatre. Coming in at about an hour, director Mason Guthrie navigates us through five acts that follow the trials and tribulations of problematic MP Phillip Braxton (Aidan Rivers) and his personal assistant, Alison (Natasha Jobst) as he looks to resurrect his political career following an earlier embarrassing altercation on a television programme. There were consequences too for the television host, Robert Jones (Tom Browning), who can now only work on a regional radio programme. With an impending general election, the opportunity to get his revenge on his political nemesis looms large and he begins plott...
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Dead Mom Play – Unity Theatre
2Mar By Mark DavorenNo Comments
North West

Dead Mom Play – Unity Theatre

The funny thing about grief is that it’s no laughing matter, yet conversely laughter is generally considered the best medicine. That’s the conundrum for this semi-autobiographical production from writer, director, and producer Ben Blais which it doesn’t entirely overcome. A young man, Charlie (Griffyn Bellah) faces his critically ill mother (Hannah Harquart) and Death (Joe Bellis), a scythe-wielding Scouser in a hood, as he struggles to accept the harsh reality of the grieving process whilst stuck in a play of his own creation. This is the second play I have seen on grief in as many weeks and whilst I wasn’t reviewing the first, both pieces suffer from the need for some independent creative check which is absent because, in this instance, the writer has opted to direct and produc...
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