MISCHIEF MOVIE NIGHT | STAGE REVIEW
New Theatre, Cardiff, Wed 18 July
The Mischief Theatre group’s other comedies have become stage successes in recent years, The Play That Goes Wrong and Peter Pan Goes Wrong now West End staples. The setup of Mischief Movie Night is simple: each show is made up on the spot, the genre, location and name of the ‘film’ all chosen by audience members, who direct the ensemble. This premise, may sounds like another am-dram disaster but the speed and satire of the cast, fused with a clever narrative tailored to each subsequent show, produces quite the opposite.
Jonathan Sayer plays the Oscar, a movie mogul with a DVD collection comprised of every film that you could ever imagine. Less desirable in this age of instant streaming, perhaps, but Oscar challenges the audience to scrutinise his collection and choose a film to be played out by the cast, improvisation style. Tonight’s audience offers suggestions from the silly (kung-fu in Huddersfield?) to the sinister (Scandi noir-inspired propaganda); when the preliminaries fall into place, the troupe pieces together a Disney-esque comic caper set in the most magical place on Earth – Pontypandy.
The end result is wackier than your wildest dreams, complete with a talking lasagne, wavering Welsh accents and that lift from Dirty Dancing. Typical Disney film tropes remain prevalent, and a string of instantaneously made-up musical numbers shine as the narrative follows a damsel in distress, the Princess Of Pontypandy – whose knight in shining armour comes in the form of Gethin, a young poet who, despite his limited vocabulary believes he is quite the reincarnation of Dylan Thomas.
When the ensemble can’t contain their laughter, Oscar remains the lynchpin. He uses a figurative remote control to rewind, pause and fast forward the film, cutting out dead ends or repeating audience-hit sequences. There are moments where the frivolity becomes too frantic, the jokes too repetitive or one-liners linger a little long, but the continuous slapstick and stupidity forces many a smile – and, credit where it’s due, to play out an improvisation for 75 minutes is a feat in itself. (Director’s) hats off.
words SOPHIE WILLIAMS