Showstopper! The Improvised Musical Review 🦆🦆

Credit: https://showstopperthemusical.com/

Today I am going to talk about something that has been popping up on my WhatsApp and Twitter over the past few weeks but not had the chance to talk about myself. While The Shows Must Go On re-uploaded the 25th Anniversary of Phantom as yesterday was the show's anniversary, I instead decided to go with something a bit more... unpredictable. 

My friends have been going on about what the Showstoppers: The Improvised Musical have been doing - and it was high time that I checked out what all the fuss was about. 

This is exactly what it says on the tin: it is an IMPROVISED musical! This company base a show around that night's audience's suggestions, including where it is set and shows the songs are inspired by, or more accurately, spoofed off. 

For this one for example, we had a canal setting with a cockney family set on a barge with a double-crossing police vibe. And a cameo from a couple of ducks taking the mick out of the situation just like Statler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show. 🦆🦆 But we could have had a musical set in a fridge! That's how wacky and imaginative some of the suggestions were....!

Like I said, the audience (or in this case comments) also gave suggestions on what musical styles to spoof. We had:

• Only Fools and Horses
• Les Mis
• Cabaret
• Waitress
• Blood Brothers (in a number called "I'll Tell You It's True"  *groan*😅)
• A Shakespearean style monologue
• A number in the style of a Cole Porter musical like Anything Goes
• Come From Away
  And finally....
• A rap number inspired by Hamilton... from the ducks! 🦆🦆

See what I mean!  

The talent of their team is incredible, from the cast to the musicians. How they are able to improvise a score, song and script out of their brains like that is just mind-boggling. And it made me laugh a LOT. So I need to mention that we had Jonathan Ainscough, Ruth Bratt, Susan Harrison and Adam Meggido as our cast tonight; but they have a team of cast whom they rotate around for each performance. 

One final thing I forget to mention: the audience gets to choose the name of the improvised musical too. For this one, they chose Lie Me A River... 😂😂😂

If you feel like you missed out on this, don't panic. They are holding more performances like these every Friday in October. Plus if you live in London (or Ms Rona is in a good mood and allows you to make a cheeky trip), they will soon be going a socially distanced run of performances at the Garrick Theatre (where I saw City of Angels). 

You can find all the information you need on their website here: https://showstopperthemusical.com/

If you are looking for something fun and wacky to get your weekend started, I would definitely recommend giving this group a chance. No, you won't be getting rapping ducks again (damn it! 🦆🦆😭), but that's the beauty of it. You have no idea what you're going to get: neither do THEY until the suggestions come in just a couple of minutes before they are due to start! 

It's one of the most random things you'll see, but it's worth it.