THE MAN WHO WOULDN’T BE MURDERED at the Lion & Unicorn Theatre
★★★
“there are definitely some musical talents among the cast, and they particularly shine as a chorus”
It’s always a bold choice to put on a new musical in a 60-capacity with only a keyboard for accompaniment. But that doesn’t stop the cast of The Man Who Wouldn’t Be Murdered from singing their hearts out.
I had never heard the tale of Michael Malloy before this evening, but writer and composer Lilly Blundell has done well to come upon it because it’s absolutely ripe for a musical farce.
In 1933 America, times are tough, and Michael Malloy (Jude Ashcroft) is drinking Marino’s bar dry when he’s supposed to be the one serving the drinks. So as to save his business, Tony Marino (Jamie Ellis) decides, along with a couple of greedy accomplices, to murder Malloy and collect his life insurance. But, as the name would suggest, despite their best efforts, he will not be killed.
Death (Marie-Ange Camara), tired of the same old stories, finds herself obsessed with Malloy’s murderers and acts as partial narrator and observer. Wanting to see how far they’ll go, she withholds her ultimate power: Therein lies Blundell’s explanation for Malloy’s seeming immortality.
Camara is certainly the star of the show, moving sphynx-like around the would-be murderers as she playfully interferes. She’s a childish psychopath, stomping her feet and yelling “boring!” at the prospect of the human condition, whilst almost salivating at the growing wilfulness of Malloy’s ‘friends’.
There’s a bit of a problem with consistency: the faster paced songs are catchy and cheeky, whereas the slower numbers- a lover’s lament between main murderer Tony Marino and his wife (Annie Stedman), for example- are a bit of a drag, and feel especially long. They might be fine if it were a full-length musical, but given it’s only 55 minutes, I want as much jigging about as possible. Also, it’s a bit tired to have the only female character spend the whole time looking like a hurt bunny, trying to get her man to make sensible choices, and generally dampening the good fun.
With such a small space, it’s hard for the performers to gauge how big they should go, and the result is a bit pitchy. But there are definitely some musical talents among the cast, and they particularly shine as a chorus, splitting harmonies four or five ways, and moving in jaunty tandem. The design is thankfully simple, and further than the use of a drinks trolly, the stage is left mostly empty for the use of the generous cast of eight.
Please excuse me, but I’m about to majorly spoil the ending: Given that in real life Malloy was eventually murdered, it feels a bit bizarre that the story should end so abruptly with another failed attempt, instead focusing on the demise of Marino’s personal life. But it does feel like maybe this is just the first reveal of an idea still in incubation, an excerpt, even, from an as yet unfinished hit musical.
“the plots take just enough unexpected leaps into comic hyperspace that the show is never dull”
Starship Improvise is the perfect piece for fans of classic sci-fi franchises like Star Trek, and the fan conventions that sprang up in their wake. As we all remember, Galaxy Quest was the movie that made fun of both. Starship Improvise will remind audiences of Galaxy Quest, with the add-ed attraction of a show that allows plenty of room for the cast to improvise around the chosen themes for the evening. Judging by the line that waited on the afternoon I was there, actors from the Mischief, Austentatious and Showstopper! companies have found another winner to present as part of their comedy franchise at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. What’s cool about Starship Improvise is that you can just see one show, or you can keep showing up for them all. There’ll be a different episode to improv every time, and a changing cast as well.
The set up in Starship Improvise is as follows: the actors of the popular sci-fi series of Celestia Seven are attending a fan convention. The cast file on stage, talk a bit about the series, what it means to them, and what was really going on behind the scenes. They decide they are going to select a favourite episode, and replay it for the fans. On this particular day, the chosen Celestia Seven episode is all about the Captain’s Birthday. The opening location is the Engine Room, and the emotional theme is Joy. With the parameters set for the improvisations, the cast gets to work. The members of the crew are an obvious mash up of various incarnations of Star Trek, with the tough but emotionally vulnerable captain, the overly logical ship’s surgeon whom she has recently broken up with; the ship’s empath, and of course, the resident alien, who runs around trying to understand humans. In place of the Spock character from Star Trek, however, we have Lab Rador from Canis Major in Celestia Seven.
As the improv gets going, there are lots of opportunities for Starship Improvise to make fun of everything from toxic masculinity to vegetable metaphors. Hmm. Not everything has to make sense, and the audience gets a huge amount of enjoyment from watching the actors miss their cues, mess up their motivations, or just run into a problematic plot line that they can’t get out of. There are moments when we see the tensions between cast members in Celestia Seven spill out into Starship Improvise. It’s all part of the fun, but it’s tough on Method Actors, for some reason.
Co-creator Adam Megiddo (who also plays Lab Rador), and fellow actors Dave Hearn, Ruth Bratt, Charlotte Gittins, Henry Lewis and Henry Shields wing it for every show. They have a list of characters and their various (complicated) relationships both on and off the stage in their heads, and they take it from there. They obviously relish the “act by the seat of your pants” set up in Starship Improvise. And with reason. They have a bunch of devoted fans in the audience who are quite happy to watch anything they do.
Starship Improvise is an easy and entertaining way to spend an hour at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It’s true that it does rely a little too much on familiar memes and themes. But the plots take just enough unexpected leaps into comic hyperspace that the show is never dull. Sometimes it’s good to just settle back in one’s seat, and enjoy the fun.
Reviewed 7th August 2022
by Dominica Plummer
Photography by Andrew Pugsley
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