L.O.V.E. is a competently handled night of improvisation. The preparation begins as you’re waiting, wine-in-hand, to descend the vertigo-inducing stairs to the Fortune studio: A member of the cast, hands out slips of paper with the incomplete sentence: ‘Love is…’. You are then required to complete the sentence and drop it into a basket. 

It is interesting to see who broods over this task and who takes all of about three seconds. I fell into the latter category – but at least I didn’t cop out with ‘Love is a Battlefield’ – which, as we were to later find out, would come up at least twice. Dunedin must have high density of Pat Benetar and Jordan Sparks fans. 

The Christchurch based L.O.V.E team is composed of Daniel Pengelly, Vanessa Wells, Elsie Edgerton-Till and audience favourite, Hamish Parkinson. They used the ‘Love is…’ definitions to fuel improvised sketches which included tales of Justin Bieber’s love affair with a toaster to a WW1 cross-dressing romance (Love is Battlefield…). 

This is no doubt an entertaining night at the theatre, the performers attack with skill and commitment, but it didn’t tread any new ground. In many ways it was a box-ticker of traditional improvisation games.

Having said that, there is a framework to L.O.V.E. in the form of ‘Chapters’ e.g. ‘Chapter 7 – Unrequited Love’ and this is read by a seductive voice-over. This voice-over is a character in itself, cleverly used pre-show when it asks audience members in Tinca Turle style to “switch their phones to vibrate” and in case of emergency to find “oxygen in the mouth of the person next to you”. And it is this element, the voice-over character, which could have been used to elevate the show from a box-ticker, to a box-pusher. 

Surprisingly, the highlight of the night came from the audience, not the stage. Edgerton-Till asked the audience to give her a period from history in which to set a skit, so some Clever Joe up the back yelled ‘Cretaceous’ (post-Jurassic – so if you’ve seen the 1994 Spielberg hit, yes we’re talking Dinosaurs). Needless to say, no one was expecting that – usually you get more mainstream suggestions like Pioneer America or the Roaring 20’s. However the L.O.V.E. team brought Dinosaurs back from the brink of extinction with excellent physicality from Pengelly and Wells. 

There is much to love about L.O.V.E. but at the same time it doesn’t quite meet its potential in terms of exploiting the various nuances and sub-cultures of its theme. Also, a warning for those with tight schedules – this ran about ½ an hour over time on opening night (not that anyone was complaining). 
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