Gig review by Steve Bennett at the Brighton Fringe

Improv group The Maydays – or at least the four of them taking part in tonight’s Pitch That Show -tell us they have no preconceived ideas of what form this hour will take. Taking just the initials of two audience members, the players suggest premises based on the same letters, for scenes of indeterminate length.

Kicking off with ‘C’ and ‘S’, it’s suggested a physical scene of ‘choreographed stupidity’, an ill-defined musical round called Chance Singing, and the underwater adventures of Complicated Seascapes. The audience votes for the third option, and so begins about 45 minutes of what could have been deleted scenes from The Little Mermaid.

A bullying pufferfish shows off in front of a paraplegic starfish; a seahorse is abandoned by his wife just before giving birth to their thousands of offspring; a mussel with wanderlust wonders if there isn’t more to life than being rooted to a rock; and a magical mermaid believes her radiant beauty will secure peace in this undersea world.

They are inventive set-ups, and spin off into equally creative flights of fancy. Some inevitably wind up with stronger narratives and better jokes than others - the mermaid strand, for example, seemed a bit stodgy – but the hits make the most out of their silliness, while the deadbeat seahorse even managed an undertone of pathos to the silliness.

Sometimes the quartet struggle to make the leaps into great payoffs. ‘There’s only been one time when mussels have escaped this rock,’ says one character. ‘When was that then?’ And answer came there none (at least not till a later scene after he’d had time to think).

Yet the absurdity of the situations they conjure up is enough, while the conviction – and the silly physicality – with which the absurd scenarios are embraced hooks the audience.

Kudos too, to the musical fifth member of the troupe, Joe Samuel , providing a soundtrack while tucked away off stage and giving the other performers a way into a few Broadway-style musical numbers to keep the energy up and the texture interesting.

Music comes into its own for the second component of the show, in which the initials GM yield the vague ‘gut-wrenching marvels’… which turns out to involve all four comedians playing various parts of the body – even if the pancreas has to ask the audience exactly what it is she does – working in rhythm for an impressive beat poem.

Pitch That Show is a new format for The Maydays, and the ‘no rules’ rules certainly gives them a chance to stretch their creativity – which they seize with vigour.

Review date: 8 May 2016
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett