Going to see the same show twice in one day may sound a little extreme even to a superfan, however there was a very good reason why I chose to see ‘Showstopper!’ more than once. Each performance of Showstopper is a 90 minute completely improvised musical, completely unique therefore I wanted to see two shows to compare how different they really were.
Showstopper! The Improvised Musical : Buy Tickets
Dylan Emery one of the co-founders of Showstoppers! enters the stage as the guise of the writer, the audience are informed that we are part of his focus group and we requested to come up with suggestions for a musical to pitch to the producer.
As you can imagine when the public get involved suggestions can be very diverse, current, political, or just plain silly. Once we have the setting of the musical other random suggestions come forward musical styles, titles etc, if a suggestion has been made recently for a previous show, Emery apologises and asks for alternatives.
At first when Emery asked for suggestions the Sunday matinee audience were hesitant but soon the ideas were flowing and once all the random suggestions have been voted for, we ended up watching a show called ‘SWILL!’, set on a Pig Farm in Dorset featuring music in the style of Phantom of the Opera, Newsies, Company, Oklahoma with an Eric Clapton guitar solo thrown in. If this wasn’t a great enough challenge; the more enthusiastic evening audience came up with the story of a haunted brothel in Paris called (ahem) ‘Come Back’ with an equally diverse mixture of musical styles.
With the setting outlined by the audience, 6 actors took to the stage and with a minimum amount of creatively used props and a generous amount of energy, eye-contact, trust and inspiration, the musicals unfolded, each were clever, witty, musically sound and highly entertaining and would have been seamless except for the regularly interruptions from Emery who, with the audience’s help changed the direction of the stories constantly.
Music is provided by a three piece band led by Musical Director Duncan Walsh Atkins who are kept on their toes with songs and styles thrown at them at the drop of a hat. Despite all that, they are clearly enjoying the show as much as the audience are.
Showstopper is the first improvised show to have a run in the West End and although both performances I attended had a good size audience, ‘Showstopper’ has a lot to prove.
Showstoppers won’t be for everyone, particularly those who like to know what to expect, it is chaotic, occasionally risqué and doesn’t stay on a constant path but jumps about at the audiences bequest, but it is fun, refreshing and as each show is completely unique it may even be worth going back again and again. During their 10 week run at the Apollo Theatre they will perform 80 completely individual shows, which ones will you see?
Reviewer: Sammi O’Neill
I saw this production at two preview performances therefore it was subject to change before opening on Wednesday 30th September – hang on, change? It changes every performance!
Book tickets to see Showstopper! The Improvised Musical here.
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