AUSTENTATIOUS at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

★★★★★

“they really lean into the jokes of each moment, which makes it just really, really funny”

Austentatious: An Improvised Jane Austen Novel does pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. A group of talented improvisers, with support from a pianist and lighting operator, improvise a brand new Austen-esque novel every night, based on a title suggestion from the audience. In today’s show, “Ghouls and Gumption” and “Dungeons and Darcy’s” were politely dismissed, before settling on “The Poisoned Petticoat” for this afternoon’s title. Whilst attempting to stick to the tropes of 19th century romance novels, improvised, sometimes-muddled plots and characters make the perfect ingredients for chaos.

The loose plot of today’s show involves Margery returning to Bath having been away for an entire month. Having left a girl, she is now a ‘fully grown woman’ and must find a man, crucially to avoid the fate of her cousin (also sister?) who at the ripe old age of five-and-twenty has missed the boat for romance. She meets the slimy Captain Whirligig, who seems to have a history of spinning women to death… and there’s also something about vomit. Oh, and there’s a petticoat maker, Miss Smith, who possibly makes a poisoned petticoat… or maybe it’s just biodegradable. Honestly the whole thing was so chaotic it’s hard to remember how consistent the plot was, and that’s sort of the fun of the whole thing, as the actors find themselves with increasingly farcical twists and turns in the stories which they have to try and get out of to reach each next bit.

There doesn’t seem much point reviewing the plot as you’ll get a completely different show each night, but what I can say is that these are improvisers at the absolute top of their game. Each scene starts with mostly two or three of the actors coming onto the stage and as the lights go up, the scene begins. Sometimes whoever turns up makes the scene feed nicely into the plot. Other times, they just have to sort of work out why they’re there. They do a great job at finding motifs and recurring gags which they bring back again and again throughout the story. The highlight from today’s was perhaps the ‘meeting room bookings’ which kept going wrong, and a very funny bit involving two of the actors camouflaging themselves to the wall, which had great comic payoff in a later scene. It’s hard to pick a standout performer as it’s such an ensemble effort, but today Cariad Lloyd and Lauren Shearing were particularly on their A-Game with the way they interacted with the others and helped to move the plot along.

What’s really interesting about the performance style is that the actors don’t shy away from pauses; in fact, it sort or becomes part of the style of the whole show, as they’re stuck in a scene working out what to say or do next to move the situation forward. They don’t tend to focus too much on plot narrative (although it does come up a little bit in each scene), but rather they really lean into the jokes of each moment, which makes it just really, really funny. We enjoy watching them struggle a bit, and sometimes an offstage actor will pop in just to throw an extra challenge to them.

There was a bit about two thirds through today’s show where the plot really had been forgotten and there were a few scenes that felt a little dry, but the lighting operator was quick to end these scenes with a blackout, which really helped to keep the pace up.

It’s a hugely entertaining show, and I’d even say you don’t really need to be much of an Austen fan to appreciate it. I would gladly go again and again and would definitely encourage it to be high up on your watch list if you’re after some top quality improv.

AUSTENTATIOUS at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe – Underbelly – Bristo Square

Reviewed on 11th August 2024

by Joseph Dunitz

Photography by Paul Gilbey

AUSTENTATIOUS

AUSTENTATIOUS

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