With Pirates we are into improvisation and therefore the show as well as the cast will be different each time, though I presume the basic plot of a search for treasure on a desert island will be the core of the proceedings. 3 performers available from a group of 7 listed in the programme appeared for the slightly uncertain first performance.

Of course, everything depends on the involvement and imagination of each audience. At the first performance the pirates ended up building a flying boat out of chocolate and ponga fronds, all suggested by the audience many of whom sported eye patches and piratical hats while they became dorsal fins of sharks, tentacles of a giant squid, a wiggling sea serpent and lots more besides.
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The Olde Worlde Empire map that marks the locations of Celts, Saxons, Gauls, Franks, Goths, Vandals, Basques, Lombards, Greeks, Ottomans … etc. and forms a backdrop for Pirates! was never referred to in The Improvisors’ opening sortie into their latest holiday show. That was a shame, I thought.  

But the less that’s predetermined in improv the better. The premise for this show includes: the audience is press ganged into being the crew of a pirate boat; a song will be sung about what pirates like; a tale will be told of a shipwreck; there will be buried treasure to be found; our captain has an arch rival who is determined to get the treasure all for himself and not share anything; another songs will reveal ‘If I had some treasure this is what I’d do…’

The audience decides such things as the name of the ship; what it is that the pirates like (to be incorporated into the song’s verses); what kind of animal the rival captain models himself on; what pirates fear, and what the thing that pirates fear fears; alternative means of travel (when the ship sinks), and what it’s made from and how… And of course the audience hauls up the sails, grinds the grinders, provides the wind …

Nothing dissuades me from my long-held view that the more crucial audience participation is to the progression of the story, the better it works, and in this case we tend to be reduced to colouring in what’s already there.

The opening show will not be one Greg Ellis, Pete Doile and Ian Harcourt stick in their scrapbook of triumphs. I feel its slow start came from demanding a loud greeting without canvassing what a piratical greeting might be. “Hello” simply does not have the resonance of “Ahoy me Hearties!”

The young audience was super keen to get involved, nevertheless. Too often, however, the roles or functions they took on were not clearly explained and when the little ones didn’t get it and looked bemused, rather than ‘empower’ them – e.g to be someone’s arms or to physically move their limbs – the pirates tended to laugh among themselves at the fact it wasn’t happening and work around it. A lose-lose outcome, in my opinion.

The low risk element reduced the entertainment factor. The drama did become heightened when they took on self-imposed challenges like simultaneous talking and telling a story one word at a time but I’m not sure how aware the young ones were of those dimensions.

When Harcourt’s villain kept peeking from off stage, inspiring the kids to shout out, this seemed to throw the others off rather than work as an offer to build on, so it felt a bit muddled for a while. There was a sense the narrative was being ground out in spite of interruptions, rather than fluently providing platforms for ingenious improv sequences.

Nevertheless Ellis, Doile and Harcourt can be relied on to resuscitate a flagging show and ensure there’s an outcome no matter what. And musician Tane Upjohn-Beatson added excellent melodies and effects to the unfolding yarn, abetted by Uther Dean’s improvised lighting.

Most importantly, the kids left feeling they’d had a good time, unaware it could have been better. And no-one is more aware – no-one feels more exposed and vulnerable – than improvisers when a show’s not firing well, so there is every reason to expect all future shows will be crackers. Or maybe not? You never can tell with improv.

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