The Bingo Board of Doom is a simple improv experiment. It starts like any regular show – take five improvisers and let them improvise scenes based on a word of the audience’s choosing (in this case the word helicopter). What sets this show apart is that in the corner sits an all-powerful bingo caller who can not only stop and start scenes seemingly on a whim, but is also armed with a bingo cage filled with bingo balls that relate to challenges on the eponymous bingo board of doom. Bingo.

We are presented with five or six stories between which the improvisers jump to and fro based on the bingo caller’s discretion. Stories that play out include Michelangelo stealing a design for a Lego helicopter from a student, an enthusiastic mystery shopper passing out at 300 feet and a well-endowed man spinning his appendage in an attempt to woo a mate (unsuccessfully). 

There is much joy to be found in this format, not least in the format’s narrative which picks up and drops stories in a style reminiscent of a Billy Connolly set. This is entirely down to the lightning-like, chameleonic ability of the ensemble – Christine Brooks, Rik Brown, Catherine Crowley, Jason Geary and Matt Powell, with the Robbie Ellis as muso – to switch between characters and storylines, which can only be achieved through focus, experience and dogged cocksureness.  

What makes this even more enthralling is, as was pointed out to us at the start of the performance, the ensemble hail from a variety of different troupes. There is little familiarity between the performers so the quickness and speed of thought, the deftness of touch and the leaness of narrative can only be put down to seeing five improvisers at the very top of their game; each offer accepted, developed and squeezed for every drop of comedy and opportunity.

That is why the bingo board is needed, to make things a little more difficult for the performers. Its challenges range from a character suddenly revealing a secret, scenes being turned into operas and something mysteriously called ‘ding-dong’ which is unfortunately not pulled from the Bingo Ball Cage of Doom.

Instead of bringing doom, the board simply provides a mere mental exercise for those involved. The troupe is at no point fazed by the challenges presented to them. While some of the bingo numbers lead well to gags and one liners, which are plentiful, the numbers also allow for the breadth of the performer’s talents to be exposed to full effect, with the ensemble showing they can perform to the same high standards through Shakespearean verse, song, pure physical comedy as well as the familiar genre and accent rollercoasters.   

Commendations must be extended to the bingo caller, Bridget Metherall, who perfectly times the cutting between scenes and the reveals of the bingo balls to ensure the actors stay on their toes. Her beautiful, unassuming, composed tone is really our only link to a traditional game of bingo in a night of frenetic, controlled absurdity.

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