History Never Repeats

Stalker Girl reviews History Never Repeats at Circa:

Last night David actually agreed to meet up with me, which is a damn sight easier than my usual game of figuring out his exact location from blog posts and social media snooping.

Dave had invited me to attend The Improvisers performance of their new show “History Never Repeats” at Circa, a family friendly improvised comedy show with a loose focus on the what-could-have-beens of an alternate world history.

In the typical improv comedy fashion audience members were invited to set the scene for portions of the performance, not only proving that, indeed, they were making it up as they went along, but providing for plenty of opportunity for the audience to really feel invested in the show.

Dave’s (slightly) larger than life personality saw him easily slip a few of his “oddly specific” interests  in to the mix, resulting in scenes depicting the late Roman republic. I proffered “Crying Robots”, a theme which I felt the improvisers handled well, giving it all the gravitas and aplomb deserved of a futuristic depiction of sad automatons.

The show did tend to re-visit some of the well worn tropes of Improv Comedy, featuring high-brow themes such as ‘how bad my accent is’ and ‘outdated cultural stereotypes’.

I have to say It was an excellent night.

It was indeed a very enjoyable performance by The Improvisers. The theme of doing different stages in history worked well, as it allowed much mocking of different countries and eras. On our night the eras chosen were Roman (which when they asked what part, I did get specific to general amusement), 801 AD (did Vikings), around 1500s in Japan and late 1800s in Ireland, the present day in Liverpool plus the Flying and Crying Robots of the future.

I always wonder if they used some general routines that they fit into each era, but reading other reviews, it seems it is totally original each night. As well as setting the eras, the audience also sets some other aspects for each era. For the present dat setting, it was “group sex” which was amusing (and done in a cleanish way).

I don’t know the names of the different performers, and annoyingly they are not online either. But the one with the moustache who looks a bit like Lord Petyr Baelish in Game of Thrones was especially good. They all have different strengths, which blend in well together.

In the first half of the show they improvise the various scenes starting from oldest going through to the future. Then during the brief interval, they quickly discuss how to not just finish each scene, but actually link them all together so what happened in the past, affects the future. Then you see each scene from the present back to the past. A simple concept that worked well.

The show is on until Saturday, and is a fun night’s entertainment. Well worth going to.