Bridewell Theatre – 8 May 2017. Reviewed By Jessica Brady
I just returned from a really fun night at Bridewell Theatre, as a fellow improviser I am really impressed by this new troupe ‘SIMPROV’, this improvisation group is part of Sedos, the City of London’s premier amateur theatre company. It was a great location to start a new improv group, good space, good audience and a big stage to play with.
This 15 strong group of newly born improvisers are definitely on to something interesting and fun with the evening being split in two halves, the first being a series of improv games and the second was two rounds of Armando’s (long form improvisation). There were two improvisers who also act as hosts to the evening and made sure it ran smoothly.
One of my favourite games that SIMPROV played were Emotion Car where 4 improvisers and member of the audience leave the theatre and we had to give suggestions for an emotion for each improviser to take on. The improvisers and audience member came back into the theatre and the improvisers were assigned an emotion in secret from the audience member. The scene unfolds as each improviser takes the next person to get in the ‘car’s’ emotion and ends with the audience member having to guess what each improviser’s emotion was.
There were a lot of fun games that the group played and the second half of the evening with the long form improv showed a different side to all the improvisers and showed variation on their skills. Considering this was the first time that SIMPROV performed, I thought that they did a great job and each person involved brought their own personality and showed real skill. Improvisation is not an easy thing to do and requires nerve, imagination and acceptance which these performers have.
If I could suggest anything for SIMPROV to improve the show it would be to add some music related games and not to be afraid of going even further with the improvisations. Improv doesn’t always need to be funny, it can go in darker directions, or more bizarre areas.
A great evening with some giggles and silliness and SIMPROV is only going to get bigger and better!