It’s 1995 and back to school as Kickin’ Rad Productions ropes together a mix of Wellington improvisers to play out the school year through shows through the day, as regular as periods at school. There’s the staff, the children. the parents and the various locales all provided by the casts doubling left right and centre to bring us the highs and lows of school life.

It’s an episodic improv format we’ve seen before in the likes of PlayShop’s Riddiford Street and features a number of the regular crew. An ever present Conductor, Matt, introduces the characters and brings us up to speed. He also serves the very important function of poking the players in the proverbials when they begin to wimp out in scene [wimping is to avoid an offer by asking a question or throwing the responsibility of the scene onto the other player with little impetus].

One of the lovely things about improv is that it’s there and then it’s gone – if you weren’t there at some point today – you missed it.

The cast uniformly present well rounded characters and are great at keeping the narrative balls in the air, but it’s uniformly the women who provide the strongest playing. It’s great to see not only strong women characters but such quick and assured improv from the same. Indeed, apart from Sam Irwin’s Religious Studies teacher, they drive a lot of the scenes with some sassiness.

Best insult – “You are the rat up my ass” – even better when delivered in a delicious French accent.

The simple and effective set gives the players a lot of possibilities of locations, though during the teacher parent interviews some of the parents, when facing stage right, are very difficult to hear.

These guys are getting better and better, so if you see them advertised, go, grab a beer and sit back for a wonderfully bumpy evening.

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