The Improvised Musical @ C

No Shoes Theatre present to you the “make your own musicals” kit. You choose the props, you choose the setting, you choose the title, you even choose name a song for the finale. What’s more if you can ‘guess that tune’ faster than anyone else you might get a token which allows you to call for a song, a spotlight on a particular character, or some other quirky event, at your own will.

Once given the theme of a haunted beach, No Shoes Theatre immediately impress with a suitably creepy overture that climaxes in extreme counterpoint. Jaws may drop at the improvised interweaving of several melody lines alone, but paired with the theme of creepy beach some of these counter-lines are subtly hilarious (“creepy-CREEPY-creepy-CREEPY-very-CREEPY-beach.”)

Despite an initial unintended ambiguity over which characters were to serve as protagonists, and a final rush to weave the strands of subplot into a sturdy braid in time for the end of the piece, there were so many strokes of brilliance in this ragtag improvisation about a beach filled with zombies and undead crabs. The double scene between a Cruella deVille-esque villain (played by Nic Lamont) and her queer zombie henchman (played by Adam Rhys-Davies) is undoubtedly the highlight of the piece – the two play off one another humourously with hijinks, unexpected retorts, witty quips, and of course the fine art of duet.

Irony struck when the plot-twist had it that some critic was the originator of the accursed woe afflicting the beach. After mistakenly entering a bad review online, the proprietor died of a broken heart, and her own sour grapes fated her to walk the beach undead, forever, that she might rain vengeance upon critics of the world.  “Those people writing reviews will pay!” she sings with scorn. But, thanking our lucky star-ratings, we here at The Skinny are safe. Finally she is redeemed by the reviewer who returns to make good on his error, and declare his undying love. Hilarious.