At Circa 2 during Halloweenies the young audience very quickly got the message that monsters are not at all frightening and some youngsters ticked off characters on stage when they said monsters were frightening.

Halloweenies is the funniest of the Improvisors Kids shows that I have seen. While there is still a lot of improvisation there is a strong structure behind all the action that can be relied on if an audience’s responses don’t get the comic improvisations firing. 

Greg Ellis, as Roger the Monster who goes off to Drama School, is very funny with his gravelly voice as he sets about converting us to the truth that monsters are just poor misunderstood creatures and speak a different language.

This proposition doesn’t go down well with Tim (Ian Harcourt) and his hairy mum (Tom McGrath) but they learn they should be more wary of the Monster Catcher who charges monstrous fees to get rid of them around the house. 

The show also has two unnamed musicians who play a “monster” soundtrack as appropriate as the gloomy Edinburgh setting provided by the evening show, Midsummer.

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The grey-black stonework surrounds of Edinburgh that grace Ian Harmon’s set for Midsummer offer an ideal ambience for The Improvisors’ new school holiday show, Halloweenies. Someone – who turns out to be Timmy (Greg Ellis) – is asleep on the bed and a musician (Matiu Whiting) is thrumming in the corner with a double bass and guitar.  

Continuing their play-safe principle that there must never be anything fearsome in their shows (is this an OSH thing or something?), Halloweenies is principally dedicated to proving monsters are not really scary just because they’re big and hairy (yes, there’s a song in that); they’re just different. What’s more, we humans scare them because we too are different, from their perspective.  

The amiable Monster for this Tuesday show is Ralph McCubbin Howell, adopting a delightful ‘Rasta’ accent. His initial ‘ask for’ to the young audience is, “What is a scary thing about monsters?” He doesn’t miss a beat when he gets Zombie, a Scorpion and Ghosts, explaining, “It’s all a terrible misunderstanding”: the Zombie’s arms are outstretched because it’s offering a shoulder massage, the Scorpion is wagging its tail like a dog because it’s happy, and the Ghost’s “Hooo…” sounds are just part of its vocal warm-up. These elements are deftly incorporated into the unfolding drama.

But Timmy still thinks monsters are scary. It’s his Mother (a full-bearded Thom McGrath) who tells the ‘what happened’ story of how this problem was solved – and it’s a bit odd telling it as a past-tense story given we’ve just seem Timmy being spooked in the present.

A child’s idea of what a mother does at home for a hobby while the kids are at school is “ironing” (horrified reactions from mums in the audience!) so she dutifully does that when the black-caped Monster Catcher (Ellis) comes to call. His name is Anton Van Helping and his accent is German (because he’s the baddie?). Trading on the “If you love your son you will do this!” line, he demands a $6,000 fee to rid the house of monsters the following morning. When a child happily offers it to an aghast Mother, the Monster catcher keep inventing reasons for escalating the price. Yes, he is much more scary than the so-called Monster.

The Monster’s quest to learn to speak ‘human’ is also slightly odd given that’s what everyone has been speaking so far. Nevertheless, when asked for the monster movies he may have learned ‘human’ from, he gets Batman and Frankenstein (note to actors: Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein was the scientist who created the monster, not the monster himself). And again we learn why these particular monsters are not scary – but when the Monster demonstrates ‘human’ to Batman and Frank, it terrifies them.

By asking “What do humans do?” the Monster gets, “Play games,” and their favourite game is, “Tag.” This too becomes incorporated – as does the offer “get a haircut” when he asks what he can do to make himself look more human. And children come up from the audience to ‘be’ the household objects they suggest as components of the trap the Monster Catcher devises – and demonstrates when the Monster doubts it will work.

The underlying structure, then, is well conceived. The recurring song is good. McCubbin Howell is especially good at building texture based on the ‘ask fors’. McGrath plays an excellent quartet as Mother, Batman, a Teacher and a Barber, excelling especially in holding off the moment then being suddenly scared when he sees a Monster. Ellis finds good contrasts in timid Timmy, the malevolent Monster Catcher and stupid Frank but I quickly tire of the bit where he keeps reappearing and interrupting the flow as a lumbering Frank, despite the fact it is gaining no traction as a running gag.

There wasn’t much in the way of ‘monster music’ that I noticed. The tag game engenders a classic “you’re in / unrine” joke. A passing police siren is neatly incorporated, including by lighting operator Uther Dean, who quickly flashes the red and blue circuits.

Overall it’s one of the best Improvisors kids’ shows I’ve seen because so much arises from the audience ‘ask fors’ which are elicited throughout the hour.

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