“an intriguing mix of gifted improvisers and some still learning their craft”
The Free Association Improv Company is well named. Its latest offering, 666 Hell Lane, is an illuminating example of the company’s particular style of work. Staged in the appropriately named Crypt space at the VAULTS, Free Association present sixty minutes of “comedy horror”. The performance style is a low key kind of humour, filled with lots of references to contemporary movies, movie stars, and classic horror genres. But if you’re expecting to be scared out of your seats, or left aching with laughter, 666 Hell Lane will leave you, ultimately, a tad underwhelmed.
There’s still plenty to appreciate in Free Association’s work, however. The company is committed. There are several talented improvisers in the team. So what’s 666, Hell Lane about? On this particular evening, it’s about two start up creators who have lost their way in a forbidding forest in the middle of the night. It’s only a matter of time before they see a light among the trees, and find a creepy hotel presided over by a creepy host. Sound familiar? Yes, said host looks faintly reminiscent of Riff Raff from the Rocky Horror Show. Sadly, there is no Frank ’n Furter to accompany him, but there are a lot of jokes about Rupert Grint. Either the Harry Potter star is a friend of the company, or else he is desperate for some publicity. And some work. But I digress. Seriously, 666 Hell Lane is all about digressions.
So let’s just back up a moment. Why have the heroes of this particular evening’s horror story, Bash and Crash, lost their way? Well, that’s how each Free Association show begins. The audience is asked to provide a question as a jumping off point for the evening’s comedy/horror story. The company take the question, “free associate” from scene to scene, until, eventually, many shaggy dog stories later, some sort of a conclusion is reached. On this particular evening, the audience asked “Why am I here?” It’s a nightmare question, really, and it says much for the performers that they took that on board, in the ironic spirit intended, and ran all over the set with it. A tortuous tale of disappearing diners emerged, complete with bumbling policemen, neighbourhood comedians desperate to deliver punchlines if not narrative coherence, zombies, and “genre hopping.” Every so often the audience would find themselves in yet another narrative space, and the diner would make a shift back to the hotel, or a video rental store, for example. (Do we still have those?) The contemporary culture jokes would then get a work out. Yep, these guys are pretty slick with all their self-referential irony. Hence all the Rupert Grint jokes, one presumes. And for some reason, Cate Blanchett’s Tàr came in for a lot of heavy hitting.
666, Hell Lane is not the worst way to spend 60 minutes, even if trains rumble loudly overhead every so often, and drown out the dialogue. You might miss a few essential plot points in that particular scene, but rest assured that if the cast gets into narrative trouble, there is always another performer waiting in the background to tap a shoulder, and get stuck into taking the story in yet another seemingly random direction. Performers Alex Holland, Graham Dickson, Alison Thea-Skot, Mariam Haque, Kiran Benawra, Luke Healy, Kat Bond and Laura Riseborough are an intriguing mix of gifted improvisers and some still learning their craft. At its best, free association is this company’s super power. But they could still use a more energetic presentation if they wish to use this American performance style and make it their own.
“With their quick wit and shared comedic stylings, Minority Report and its members are definitely worth looking out for”
Minority Report are the first resident team of the improvised comedy syndicate Free Association to be made up of exclusively BAME players. For one night only at the VAULT Festival 2020, the Minority Report players – Ambika Mod, Hari Kanth, Kiran Benawra, Evelyn Mok, Ishan Ganjoor and Amille Jampa Ngoen – hosted and performed a show of two parts beginning with two fifteen-minute stand-up comic sets from outside of the group followed by around half an hour of improv.
After an enthusiastic introduction by Ganjoor (who was also the host for the evening), film graduate Nathan D’Arcy Roberts opened the show with some amusing anecdotes about his experience of being mixed race and having an ‘ambiguous’ appearance.
Ken Cheng, winner of Dave’s Funniest Joke at the Fringe award in 2017, was up next and spent most of his set poking fun at the nonsensical world of online debate. Roberts and Cheng did a fine job of warming up the crowd before joining the Minority Report players on stage for some improvised sketches. The players began by performing a series of short vignettes in groups of four inspired by an initial prompt of ‘baby shower’ before moving onto more general sketches in varying group sizes.
Mod and Ngoen were the standout performances. Kanth also had some great scenes, exuding a Richard Ayoade-esque awkwardness. Chemistry amongst the group varied and there were some clearly preferable pairings such as Mod and Benawra who bounced off each other particularly well.
The group did well to play off earlier mishaps and jokes which also succeeded in creating a strong thread throughout the show. For example, Mok’s misnomer of ‘charity mugger’ for a ‘charity chugger’ led to a fantastically silly scene between Ganjoor and Kanth in which the former demanded the latter hand over his wallet so that he could donate the contents to Marie Curie. Some more prompts from the audience would have been a welcome addition to the show as other than the location of the initial scene there was no participation from the crowd.
The stage consisted of a simple black backdrop, some chairs and a microphone stand. There were no other props other than the chairs and these were seldom used other than for their intended purpose. The lighting was at its most complex when jumping between the two improv groups as one was spotlighted while the other left in the dark.
There is a lot of potential in the Minority Report players, both as a group and as individuals. With their quick wit and shared comedic stylings, Minority Report and its members are definitely worth looking out for.
