THEATRE REVIEW: Your Line or Mine?
- Posted on May 7, 2008 5:19 PM
- 0 comments
Your Line or Mine?
The Mayoral Elections!
Landor Theatre, Clapham
April 27 2008
Review by Tim Kernutt
Sunday-Funday is a term that has been in vogue for the last few years, and clearly Abandon Theatre has caught the fever as well as their Sunday evening comedy improvisation show, "Your Line or Mine", was about as entertaining a Sunday evening as you can possibly get. However, judging by the reaction of the audience, several people were unceremoniously and horrifyingly cast back to drama class at school.
If the audience members weren't up to the improvisation task, the cast-members certainly were and their physically and mentally challenging performance was rewarded by the crowd's overwhelmingly positive reaction to the fare on offer.
Whilst being a show based on traditional theatre sports is by no means new – cast your minds back to "Whose Line is It Anyway?" – the talent of the cast-members was impressive. Unfortunately, the size of the crowd did not do the performance justice, but such is the comedy circuit.
The show milks popular theatre sports like a cow does its calf. Or is that the other way around? At any length, there is plenty of milking being done, and theatre sports such as 'word-at-a-time', 'torture puppets' and 'emotional rollercoaster' were used by the cast-members with a certain spin. And the spin was the best that money (or power or both thereof) can buy – political spin. The underlying common-thread weaved throughout the show was the idea that each of the five cast-members each stood for a different political party contesting the London mayoral elections. The Democrats, the Greens, the Conservatives, Labour and the Independents were all represented on stage, and although the link was a clever one it proved to be somewhat tenuous.
However, the talents of the cast-members ultimately prevailed and the audience got more and more involved as the evening progressed. The interplay between the characters also develops over the night, and the themes of miscommunication and political correctness (or more appropriately incorrectness) are explored, against the backdrop of sexual innuendo and cultural and political differences.
There are some truly brilliant impromptu one-liners that have the audience in raptures, and the game of paper chase which involves a dangerous game of insults in a typical "meet the parents" scenario, is particularly memorable.
This is a highly recommended show, and it will be returning on May 25 at the Landor Theatre.
Related links:
Landor Theatre's official site.
Abandon Theatre.
Landor Theatre on Seatwave.
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