My partner in crime thought this would be an improv show about GoT [Game of Thrones] but after a quick mental adjustment leaped into the fun. 

Board game based improv has been around for a while and it’s always fun to see each iteration. This Game of Chance is monopoly based really: the teams of two roll a dice and move their piece along the audience row and where it stops, the said patron issues a challenge or can opt to use the pile of chance cards.

Each team performs a very short scene (we need to get around ‘the board’ before dawn) which is judged by the audience. By acclamation we can let the team advance one space, go back a space or, if we’re not happy at all, make them miss their next turn. I’m very happy to report no one missesa turn – though they certainly come close! 

All of the players have an immense amount of fun and it’s infectious as there is no pretention that this is high art. Game of Chance is interactive fun for those scared of interaction. I have to say I am highly impressed by the level of offers thrown at the team, obviously by a sophisticated improv-watching bunch.

Team Crown (an inflatable one that is passed from head to head to head along the row) is Pete Doile and Greg Ellis; Team Unicorn (at one point a mohawk) is Richard Falkner and Nic Gorman; Team Parrot (the winners on opening night) is Jennifer O’Sullivan and Rik Brown.

Though a number of the men do at times wimp and ask too many questions of their partners, the buzz is never let down, even when Doile provides some of the most bombastic and entertaining blocking I’ve seen in ages. It’s always telling to see the more tentative players hug the back of the stage, but everyone quickly warms up.

Music is provided by Oliver Devlin, backing each scene well, though I would have loved more offers for him, especially for an audience offer like ‘Baroque’. Lights by Darryn Woods were in a similar situation. Due to many shows it’s a pretty generic rig and I would have liked to see more lighting offers taken on board by the players who weren’t quite attentive to them. 

Stars of the night and deserved winners are O’Sullivan and Brown. Both players have gone in guns blazing and minds open, providing many of the highlights from “depressed Serbian hairdressers” in the Ukraine to the offer-laden song about two hungry pets which they pull off magnificently.  

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