What’s better than an evening of musical theatre? An absolutely chaotic, award-winning and completely improvised evening of musical theatre apparently!
Direct from the West End and with fiteen years of Edinburgh Fringe under their belts, you know you’re in a safe pair of hands. As the action begins, a big red phone rings and the audience meets a writer of musicals on a deadline—he needs their help. The audience shouts out suggestions of a setting, musical styles and the title of the show and off we go.
Unfortunately for me, my mind went blank when our writer (Sean McCann) asked for suggestions. Why, of course I can’t think of my favourite musical at this precise moment in time. No matter, as the audience had some cracking suggestions, and so we found ourselves witnessing the debut of Loser in the Boozer—a love story set inside The Cross Keys pub that’s due to be knocked down. This was a suggestion, I think, inspired by the recent demise of Gloucestershire’s Air Balloon, which has made way for a new road.
Taking inspiration from the musical stylings of Calamity Jane, Guys and Dolls, Wicked and—my personal favourite—Little Shop of Horrors—“There’s always Barryyyyy, there’s always Barryyyyy!” (nice work by Ruth Bratt as Jennifer the landlady)—this is a rollercoaster of a romantic comedy as poor Barry (Andrew Pugsley) tries to compete for her affections in the face of Mr Moneypenny-bags himself (Jonathan Ainscough).
But the biggest laugh of the night came at the top of act 2 when the ravens (led by Adam Meggido), who once watched over Henry VIII who drank there, launched into their very own Six-inspired piece complete with Queen-esque rapping and dance routine: “Go and tell your wife!”
As reviewing goes, it’s a difficult task, because any version of the show you might subsequently see will bear no resemblance whatsoever to what I saw. However, what I can say is that any slips or mispronunciations don’t create a second of ‘cringe’ on stage—they’re just promptly woven into the narrative, with hilarious results.
The show next heads back to the Edinburgh Festival for the season, or you can find further dates on the Showstoppers web site