Emilie Hope
Around twenty of these quick wits make up the company of The Improvisors, but each Theatresports, the players change according to availability. The players and teams are never the same and on my particular night I saw teams Autonomous Fun Machine, and Two and a Half Men, battle it out for the glory of winning theatresports.
My flatmate and I enjoyed as we watched the players perform numerous and unexpected skits. These included telling a story a word at a time, creating a beat poem, sitting mum down for an intervention as she’s an obsessive walker, to subtitle a foreign film playing in front of entitled ‘The Sad Soap’, an actor becoming a myriad of zoo animals, a young Scottish man learning to surf during the Ice Age, the telling of a jazz space story, a Shakespearean-inspired love story, and a ballet based on a mum’s advice of “don’t get pregnant” featuring burly Taita Rugby Club men. My favourite was when Two and a Half Men played a game where one of the players could only read texts that I had sent. That’s right, I willingly gave my phone to actors to read my private messages on stage. And the result was hilarious. But I’m biased.
The host of the evening was light and bubbly and warmed us up well. I would have liked knowing more about how the evening was going to run – how many rounds were we going to have? Will there be an intermission? What do they players win? – so that I could really settle into the unknown. She mentioned one too many times for my liking that they didn’t know what was going to happen tonight and that the points didn’t really matter. Rephrasing to emphasising the exciting side of not knowing what was going to happen tonight and that the points were just an indicator, would keep the high, friendly atmosphere the players did well to maintain.
I was surprised to see the amount of children I did that night. Partly because it was a Sunday night (aren’t all kids trying to smash out their homework and go to bed early on a Sunday night? Or was that just me?), Mother’s Day, and also because it was Circa, for whom pre-teens are not necessarily their demographic. However, it actually made sense that they were there. Theatresports is great for all ages, as its good clean fun, a battle of imagination and teamwork. Theatresports is great for a chill, no-strings, see-where-things-go kind of night.
Theatresports is on for another two Sundays. Grab your tickets here.