‘Showstopper! The Improvised Musical’ has returned to the Edinburgh Fringe for it’s fourteenth year. The Showstoppers delightfully dazzle audiences with a brand-new improvised musical every night. Playing The Pleasance Grand at 21:30 until 28th August (except 16th Aug).
‘Do Not Pass Go’ was the musical that the audience helped create during the evening I attended, featuring original music inspired by ‘Hairspray’, ‘Grease’, ‘Cabaret’ and ‘Wicked’, all set at a board game convention.
The ensemble that evening were Jonathan Ainscough, Ruth Bratt, Justin Brett, Andrew Pugsley, Lauren Shearing and Lucy Trodd. They were guided by Dylan Emery, who helped the audience create their brand-new musical for the producer. The talent on show was incredible, the way the cast were able to simply pull pure theatre genius out of nowhere is admirable.
The most magical of moments was lead by Ruth Bratt, who took her moment to sing a Wicked-inspired number, and boy did she take it. It was a stunning power ballad, sang with such emotion, even though it was all about building games, Ruth sang the hell out of it, even with shallow context, it was great.
Jonathan Ainscough easily was the most comical performer of the night as Mr Gameboy, with Justin Brett complimenting that as the random as hell Raven. Andrew Pugsley, Lauren Shearing and Lucy Trodd also had their moments where they winged the mental narrative of the game convention.
The band of this production also sounded stunning, they helped drive the improvisation and make it sound stable.
This production is directed and co-created by Adam Meggido and Dylan Emery, their ideas and techniques are brilliant, they have changed the face of improvisation theatre forever with this production.
I have seen ‘Showstopper!’ probably about five times now, and each time it has gotten better and better, however unfortunately this time it was not the case. I do feel there were some issues with this certain performance. This is still a brilliant piece of theatre, however, it seemed that at points they were going through the motions, it was formulative and instead of laughing or picking out their mistakes for comical purposes, they brushed past a few, making said mistakes seem amateurish.
Every night this company creates a new musical on stage therefore any issues I have with this performance can easily be non-existent the next night. I plan on catching this production once again later on in the month, most likely I’ll be proven correct and will be astounded by another original musical from these ingenious performers.
‘Showstopper! The Improvised Musical’ is a brilliant piece of theatre that features a supremely talented cast and creative team, that pulls the audience in with an original improvised musical every night.
Get tickets here for ‘Showstopper!’:
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/showstopper-the-improvised-musical
Theatre Scotland 
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