by Lucas Heap
Lights, Camera, Mayhem!
Mischief Theatre are back at the Fringe with Mischief Movie Night, an entirely improvised show inspired by the audience’s suggestions of genres, locations and titles.
I’ve wanted to see this show since I heard about ‘Mischief Movie Night In’ – which was essentially the same show but streamed live throughout lockdown to a global audience. I’d heard nothing but positive reviews…
The show started with renowned Mischief writer and performer Jonathan Sayer introducing us to his vast library of movies, including films that haven’t even been released yet. Then he asks the audience to shout out genres and locations, and we voted for what we’d like to see by cheering for our favourite. The result? A musical heist movie set in an aquarium called… Stealing Nemo, of course!
Then, all of a sudden, there’s a blackout. With just seconds to think about what on earth they’ll do next, the lights come back up and the cast instantly propels us into the first scene. Nemo, who is now a 40 year old man ( a fact pointed out multiple times throughout the performance) is still at school and lonely because he doesn’t have any friends.
Susan Harrison, Dave Hearn and Charlie Russell very quickly decide they are the villains of the story quickly inventing their roles as the clever octopus (Harrison), the dumb lobster (Hearn) and the big bad shark (Russell) within seconds.
Much hilarity ensues, but narrator Sayer doesn’t want to make things too easy for the company. He can pause, play and rewind the performance at any time which means he can play around with his cast mates and land them in it whenever he wants to. For example, when dumb lobster Hearn mentions the fact that he and his fellow evil sea creatures have killed ‘loads of famous fish’, Sayer won’t let it pass. He ‘pauses’ the film and, laughing gleefully, tells us that in the next part of the movie, the cast will name at least 5 of the different famous fish they’ve killed. The film is resumed, with the 3 on stage left desperately trying to think of anything other than Free Willy and “the one from Jaws”.
Mischief Movie Night is up there with some of the best comedy you can see at the Fringe and certainly one of the best of any of Mischief’s shows. The chemistry between all of the actors is fantastic and you can clearly see they love performing with each other. If you have the chance to see it, you really must go and you will be laughing throughout – and marvelling at their quick-witted thinking on the spot, too.
Mischief Movie Night is on at the Pentland Theatre at the Pleasance at EICC (Venue 150) throughout August until the 28th excluding 16th and 22nd at 18:30.
Tickets can be found here: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/mischief-movie-night