SHOWSTOPPER: THE IMPROVISED MUSICAL (2)****

 

By Louise

Link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/showstopper-the-improvised-musical-livestream-tickets-121758513993?aff=SSwebsite  (there are only a few hours left to watch this one, but there are two more you can book)

Available until: Sunday 18^th October 7.30pm

I really enjoyed this. I knew the performers would be really impressive because I’ve seen last week’s show and I also know what a good reputation the Showstoppers have, but I wasn’t expecting them to produce such a good musical. It must be really difficult making up any kind of musical on the spot, especially when the audience (who were online) keep throwing new ideas at them.

But I loved the story the audience came up with and the way the performers chose to present it. The host (Andrew Pugsley) offered them a choice of four plots and I probably shouldn’t say which one they chose because I don’t want to spoil the suspense if you watch it, but they chose my favourite idea.

I was worried at first because the idea they chose suggested a much larger cast. There are only four Showstoppers. But they are so talented and they took on all the other roles that we needed to see and it didn’t matter that a lot of the characters were invisible. It was the characters we could see who mattered.

All they had was the basic plotline, but straight away they seemed to know where the story was going and what they wanted to do with it. They instantly created strong, believable and interesting characters who I liked and wanted to know more about. No matter what twists the audience (via the host) threw at them, they were able to use it.

The singing was brilliant too. The audience told them what style they had to sing their next song in and even when they were told to sing it in a classical style, they did really well. The brilliant musicians, who started off the songs, went into a classical style with no problems at all and although I wouldn’t have blamed the Showstoppers if they’d had trouble, they were really good. They even went slightly operatic later on too. I feel like you could ask them to sing Wagner and they would be able to come up with something. I’m sure there are some musical theatre stars who have never heard of certain types of classical music (which is completely fine, there isn’t time for anyone to listen to all the music in the world). And then they need to be able to improvise in every style. I think they are all so clever and so brave.

The singers are Ruth Bratt and Adam Meggido (who was also in last week’s Showstopper musical) and two other performers, Lucy Trodd and Philip Pellew. They are all brilliant at singing, creating characters and accents. They had different headgear (hats, hairbands etc) to help them create new characters, but the characters they created are so strong and distinctive, I’m not sure they even needed the headgear. They all had main characters (Mr Meggido had two very different main characters), but they played smaller roles too.

The songs they create are really catchy. I can still remember some of them. I won’t tell you all the styles they sang in, but they include the style of a musical that’s new to the West End, a musical from the 1970s, a musical based on a film from the 90s and one of the best-known composers and lyricists in musical theatre.

The title is clever too. Someone in the audience thought of it and it’s used later on in one of the big scenes.

The Showstopper musicals are always great because you’re completely in awe at the talent of the performers, but I really enjoyed this as a musical in its own right too. If you’re too late to watch this musical on youtube (it’s not available for very long) there will be a new musical improvised on next Friday and the Friday after. If you’re able to watch it live and you have a youtube account, you can post in the chat to make plot and music suggestions if you like or you can just watch and enjoy it like any other musical.