Review – Late Night Theatresports

Improvisational comedy shows are tricky at best. Even a show that is going really well can suddenly turn on a dime and bomb. It takes a lot of skill to not only perform improv comedy, but to keep it entertaining as a cohesive show for an hour.

Late Night Theatresports, a showcase from locals Impro Melbourne, is presented as a competition in the ‘Whose Line is it Anyway?’ tradition, relying on audience reaction for scoring, and is a lot of fun, even if it could use a little more structure to it. I’m not supposed to go in to technical details in these reviews, and I don’t like doing it anyway, but a little more variety than ‘a secret pleasure in a different location’ would have been appreciated.

The troupe is solid and fun to watch, especially when they’re acting out the rest of the life of the friend I took to the show with me (she made the poor choice of being the only under 25 remotely close to the stage). Throughout it all, the group are accompanied by a pianist who even gets in on the comedy at times and having that incidental music really works to smooth the edges of the show.

Late Night Theatresports are performing every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday until the 13th in the Melbourne Town Hall’s Regent Room.