Review: The Improvised Shakespeare Show, Fringe 2024

As you would expect, “The Improvised Shakespeare Show” differs daily but not so different that the performers don’t have a handy back of tricks to reach into. More importantly, ShakeItUp Theatre has experience on their side. 

There’s a necessary amount of crowd work at the start to explain what’s going on – the performers will improve their way through a story that should sound Shakespearean. 

We could have a comedy, tragedy or history. History is plugged as the best of both so that will be what the audience votes for. We then need some names and a setting.

So, my review is based on Joshua the 9th and set in the Kingdom of the Sealife Centre.

The drama kicked off with two lovers quarrelling over the fate of Barry – the centre’s Great White Shark. 

By the end of the show, most of the main characters, including Octavia, the octopus witch from the bottom level, had died. 

In true Shakespearean style, I don’t think Joshua set out to kill anyone but did have a lot of blood on his hands by the end of the play.

Tone

There are jokes and asides in ‘The Improvised Shakespeare Show”, but I feel that ShakeItUp Theatre is about the acting and the improv. Gags and clowning around are second fiddle to first finding clever dialogue, which means rhymes or Shakespearean style magic, and developing a coherent plot. 

My gut feeling is that the more you appreciate the art, the more you’ll like “The Improvised Shakespeare Show’. The flip side is that an hour is a long improv session, and if you dive into this without knowing whether you like improv, it might not work out. If there’s one time and place to find out whether you like improv, then it’s Edinburgh and August.

We had deaths. There were suicides and manslaughter (fishslaughter?) in this afternoon’s show. There was gay romance. If there was any swearing, then I didn’t notice it, and we had youngsters in the audience. I think if your kid is old enough to go to a Shakespeare play, then they’re also mature enough to go to this one.

What to expect

You will have some stairs to climb, and you might have to queue on the stairs, but the Patter House is a well-run venue. 

It’s flat seating inside a temporary wooden box; I like the stools at the very back. The wooden box can get very hot, and for all the heat the wood keeps in it fails to keep out noise from the neighbouring wooden box hosting a rival show. This, though, is the Fringe and what you get.

There are a half-dozen performers, including the musician who impresses by switching between instruments as the drama unfolds. I couldn’t see them except for that unexpected declaration of war, which provoked a mad scramble for war drums. I think I heard a kazoo at one point.

The size of the troupe and the inclusion of improv music are good things. They keep the energy up. I don’t think anyone played more than two characters in today’s show, and the main characters stuck exclusively with them. 

Improv is hard to predict and set expectations for, but with ShakeItUp, I think you can expect good improv.

Overall

Not as good at that one bit of play I got to see in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon, but the only Shakespearean drama I’ve ever seen with King Crustation in it. He died on the battlefield.

ShakeItUp Theatre is a class act.

The Improvised Shakespeare Show is a full hour of antics and drama perfect for any fan and a tempting deep end for anyone improv-curious.