Lay Over is a late-night Fringe treat by some of Wellington’s best improvisers – Nina Hogg and Megan Connolly (directed by Joel Luscombe). We’re in an airport, our flight’s been delayed for a further 50 minutes by something, “Mechanical,” suggests an audience member, and we’re off.

Bouncing through characters at the speed of sound, our performers delight and throw us off balance through loud and chaotic improv. Two dance school kids are doing splits on the airport carpet, an overly-attached mum and daughter are on the way to the daughter’s wedding (the mum desperately wants it to be cancelled, for vaguely-Oedipal reasons), a furiously-horny elderly American couple had their cruise cancelled earlier and are on the prowl for a third, airline hosts provide interstitials, and somehow, amongst it all, is Liza Minelli.

Nina and Megan are fantastic improvisers, with incredible chemistry honed through a lot of performances together – Wellington audiences might know them as the pairing behind Jez & Jace, a similar excellent deconstruction of masculinity and Kiwi men. The pair are at the top of their game in this show, leaving the audience crying with laughter during an extended bit about Dyson hand dryers and precarious places to put them. It is delirious filth and utterly frenetic, and it is to the performers’ credit that they maintain such strong characters across a show with this breakneck a pace.

What Lay Over would benefit from is a little more direct intent. I’m not expecting a full-on plotted piece of theatre for a 9.30pm night show on a weekend, and our performers have created fantastic characters here but the narrative progression throughout the show leaves a bit to be desired; falling into carnage in the last few minutes.

It’s hilarious carnage, but it’s still carnage, and we, as an audience, are left wanting. The flight might be ready to board but we’re still on the tarmac. I’m not sure how much of this show is plotted versus improvised, but if it was to return for future iterations, another look at the arc/route of the show to build to a more satisfactory climax could be warranted.

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