The Improvisors’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice at Circa Theatre is a lively interactive children’s show. Having spent many years creating improvised shows for adults, this is their first venture into children’s theatre, and a very successful one it is to. 

The show is based very loosely on the story of the Apprentice, who, when left to clean the house by the Sorcerer, decides to try some magic on the broom to make it work by itself, only to find it takes over.

It is not so much the story but the telling that is the key to this show’s success. Each of three members of the Improvisors team elicits words from the young audience to assist in the telling of their tale which they cleverly incorporate into the story structure, never missing a beat.

Particularly effective was the Prince going on a journey and the audience suggesting then acting out all the things he met on the way. There is lots of physical action and sight gags making this a different but highly entertaining school holiday production. 
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The Improvisors’ first venture into children’s theatre is so successful we have to ask: what took them so long? Having seen too much gratuitous or under-used audience involvement in some other kids’ shows, the improv strategy of getting crucial story elements from the audience makes their work especially suited to a young audience keen to interact.

Of course there is a basic structure: a doddery and often forgetful Sorcerer tells the tale of how he got himself an Apprentice while a Prince went in search of an Ogre and had to be rescued, leaving the said Apprentice to clean the castle and fall into the temptation of dabbling in magic before he is ready (allegorical implications obvious).

The audience is asked to offer the Apprentice’s name, something he would like to be (that is not a wizard) and some strange thing he does every time he gets excited. Other offers are requested throughout the show and on a couple of occasions, those who want to, get physically involved in the action as well.

Thus in the fourth of their twenty performances, Sam the aspiring train driver, who faints when he gets excited, is summonsed by a wannabe rapping Elephant who cannot rhyme words to become the Sorcerer’s Apprentice while Prince William, who has no nose so has to wear a huge (imagined) plastic proboscis, goes through the traumas of proving himself worthy of the crown by capturing an Ogre.  

One of the marks of improv success is that you cannot imagine better people in the roles or a different story unfolding, yet the casting and story elements change every day. We get Greg Ellis as Aloysius Crumplebottom the Sorcerer, Ralph McCubbin Howell as Sam and the Ogre, and Kenny King as Sam’s Mum, the Elephant and Prince William and the story they create – with key audience input – is as good as any other on offer these holidays.

Ellis and King tend to shout quite a lot under the stress of constant creation (although I do realise there are times when someone backstage needs to hear the offers that will inform their next appearance). Being an all male cast (there is only one woman in the total lineup), perhaps the story that unfolds this time is especially ‘boysey’; certainly it is mostly boys who get physically involved. Despite such details, the collective creativity is a wondrous thing to behold.

Abetted by Morgan Samuel’s keyboard sfx, mood music and song accompaniments, with Uther Dean on the switchboard to provide suitable lighting effects, the plot presses on with alacrity. Songs break up the action – involving offers from the audience that are instantly incorporated into a verse – and there is magic to be had in the Sorcerer’s amazing demonstrations of his powers. Finally the magic words every parent promulgates are given their due.

But as the concluding song is sung I find myself wondering what has happened to Prince William, last heard calling from his distant prison. Have they just run out of time to resolve that plot element? Happily a girl in the audience is having none of that and demands to know what happened to him, whereupon Ellis resolves all in an instantly created four-line stanza. Magic. 

And that, in the end, is the most magical thing of all: hearing offers – and demands – from the audience integrated seamlessly into the unfolding drama. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, as recreated differently in every performance by The Improvisers, deserves full houses for its limited run. It celebrates the magic of mass imagination.
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