Review by Steve Bennett

The Improvability Drive is an unfortunately named show - conceived as a pun on The Hitchhikers Guide's improbability drive, and the nature of the show: improvisation, the end result is real word in use in mathematics. This might lead the more academic Fringe-goer to think it's some avant-garde theatre production about the Riemann Hypothesis and Fermat's Last Theorem when in fact it's something just as odd: a very funny completely improvised show.

There's a rule of thumb with shows based on improvisation, and that's if it doesn't contain the words 'Paul Merton' or 'Stephen Frost' in the name then it's likely not worth the risk, so it's a pleasant surprise to see that The Improvability Drive is brilliantly funny.

It starts like your standard improv show, the six actors running through a number of improvised games, with suggestions from the audience for things such as a setting or a first line. Some of the games are typical of the genre, having three people take turns to say one word in a sentence, having people switch characters mid-scene, and doing a scene a number of times with different emotions or in different styles. Some are a little different, such as Oscar-winning Moments, when an actor is asked to deliver an soliloquy at some point in the scene in an overly dramatic Oscar-winning style. Another game sees actors interrupted and asked to change the last line they said.

Throughout all these games all the actors show themselves to be extremely quick-witted, there was only one point in the show where you could spot anyone pausing for even a second to figure out what to say. It's a truly impressive sight and one that leads a critic to try to spot the joins, or the trick, or the segue into what could be canned material. But when the actors ask for a workplace and someone in the audience gives them a sewage treatment works, leading to a scene all about positive uses for poo, it's impossible to see how this could be in anyway pre-scripted, even on a purely structural level.

The improvisations themselves are always funny, but tend to rely too much on bizarre ideas or saying silly things, which is where the show sometimes falls down. The actors are great at making us laugh but you can be left wishing for something a little cleverer or more subtle to truly provide a big belly laugh, but coming up with a line that's both clever and funny on the spot isn't easy.

The piece-de-resitance is in the second half, when the games we have just seen are all conflated together, so any can be employed during t one long scene. It's an interesting and different take on the standard improvisational games and provides a fitting finale for a great show.

The Improvability Drive is one of the best improvised shows out there, and you get the feeling that any of these actors could easily hold their own with the likes of Merton, Frost and Jupitus. Improvisational comedy is an acquired taste, but if you're at all a fan of this genre, this is a must -see.

Dean Love

Review date: 1 Jan 2006
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett