The return of The Court Jesters in a new venue, and with fresh challenges from the scary voice of the Boss, is well tuned to the appreciative Kidsfest audience, all but filling a space more regularly used for serious and adult events. It could be said that the accustomed formula (that is, scenes based on the playful improv model, with plenty of offers from the audience and energetic performers) should work wherever sight and sound permit, but that should not detract from the enterprise and skill bouncing off the walls at the new place. 

The walls are indeed the starting place for teasing picture puzzle directions set by the Boss. As we’d expect in a gallery, ten pictures lead to a series of robust interpretations. One, depicting wrapping paper, indicates a rap contest among the four improvisers. A two headed monster image suggests two actors sharing a T shirt for a word at a time story. A trio of figures leads to the standing, sitting, lying game where no two actors can be in the same position at any one time, and so on.

The nimble four doing the work show all the quick wits and responsiveness needed to keep some wildly chaotic situations alive in dramatic terms. The audience for its part relishes the opportunity to join in the challenge by offering places or occupations to get creative solutions flowing and volunteers are regularly part of the fun. 

Setting situations, cueing action and generally melding all together, muso Nicky Marshall on keyboard is an important part of a cohesive team. Brendon Bennetts, Andrew Todd, Millie Hanford and Tara Swadi are not only individually effective as they wrestle nigh impossible material into some sort of shape, but are vigilant when intervention is needed to wind up or salvage a scene, where delay would be perilous. Thus the evening bounces right along and it is a happy audience that claps to the rhythm of the song wrapping up the doings with a ‘what we learned tonight’ theme. 

I have on one side a teenager and on the other a ten year-old. One giggles and claps more loudly than the other but both agree that a fun evening was on offer. From a troll in a cave to a Viking warrior, a failed train conductor, anxious animal vet or destitute gentry in a ‘serious’ scene, having to accommodate a marshmallow in the mouth each time they raise a laugh, the team handles our offers and the resulting chaos in the best possible way, by cheerfully finding what happens next and getting on with it. 

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