Mischief Movie Night | Theatre Review
If I can get tickets to go and see Mischief Movie Night again I shall!
What a fantastic piece of theatre! I’m still reeling and it has been 24 hours (when I’m writing this) since I’ve seen the show and I’ve slept since then. I woke up laughing.
This is probably one of the best comedies I’ll ever see in my life. I was non-stop laughing from the moment the cast come on stage.
What is Mischief Movie Night about?
Mischief Movie Night is an improvised show from the writers/creators/actors behind the bestselling The Play That Goes Wrong, The Comedy About a Bank Robbery, Peter Pan Goes Wrong and the BBC Christmas shows Peter Pan Goes Wrong and A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong.
For the last two months, the actors have been coming on stage at the Arts Theatre London with only one actor actually cast in any role – the movie mogul with every movie you could ever think of. The movie mogul, or the director, opens the show by asking the audience to ‘choose’ a movie they want to watch.
From the answers that the audience shouts out, from questions asked by the director – such as what is the genre of this movie we’re about to watch and what were our ‘favourite moments’ and finally what is the title – the audience puts together the show that they are going to see performed that evening. It is bloody brilliant!
What movie did I see?
A fantasy movie about dragons, called Gorgonzola. Our favourite moments included the dragon kiss, the return to the abattoir and a momentary look at a previous movie (to satisfy a long-serving fan in the audience) called Return of the Goujons.
From there on in… the show is improvised.
The Show
It was/is incredibly clever how the show was done. The movie mogul carefully ‘directs’ the improvised show by pausing the movie and saying things like: ‘I love this scene… but let’s return as the next scene is where the old man gets progressively older over the course of a few seconds’
You can imagine the silliness of the whole situation.
Not to mention there were two improvised musical numbers: We will not tire! We’ll fight fire with fire!
A good lyric to come up with on the spot. And they all can sing which is good for an improvised show. Or any show, in fact.
From a theatre point of view, the use of material, clothing, staging, physical theatre, and obviously, improvisation was superb. Standing on your feet and thinking fast when something goes wrong in theatre is impressive so basically making up a good, surprisingly well-connected show, with absolutely no idea of what everyone is thinking or doing, is super impressive.
Final word
If you’re looking for a guaranteed laugh, mixed with clever and surprisingly well-thought-out theatre you cannot miss Mischief Movie Night! It was simply brilliant.
And I cannot wait to see The Comedy About a Bank Robbery in February as well!
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