Catherine Bennett resumes the weekly look at the performing arts world, with the sad end of Jerusalem, the luck of a cabbie, and French revolt. Do you hear the people sing?
Adam Alcock reviews Nigel Kennedy playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons and his own Four Elements at York Opera House.
Catherine Bennett highlights the trends in the performing arts world today.
Jonathan Cridford reviews 'Ghosts', one of the Freshers' plays for this year.
The theme for this week's showing was Fairy Tales, which naturally had the cast performing such rounds as "create your own fairy tale" and "provide a gift for Sleeping Beauty". In the first round, the aforementioned "gift" round, and this week's version of the usual "here's one I made earlier" provided an opportunity for guests Lewis Chandler (paired with Lewis Gray, much to host Anjali's seeming amusement and confusion at the two Lewises) and Helen White to show off their comedy skills, and by and large they excelled over their captains, with Chandler offering a condom, “to protect her from nasty pricks” and White offering large volumes of gin, which she cheerfully provided in large (empty) bottles of Gordon’s. By contrast, Gray’s offering of “bedding” and Deane’s offering of a “flat-pack crown” seemed to fall a little flat (no pun intended). The round was not conducted in the most smooth of ways either, with Anjali for some reason deciding to skip over White’s presentation and move onto the next round, a rather uninspired “Pop Quiz” round, before coming back to the first round after protestations.
Of course, Got Booty is an “improvised panel show”, and hence there was some option for audience participation, as in the round where we were asked to suggest people who might be walking over a bridge. While on the performers' end this came across as slightly contrived, they cannot entirely be blamed. The audience on Wednesday night was the smallest I’ve seen for a comedy event, though it must be added this was not anybody’s fault or due to the quality of the show, merely it was the conspiring of several events (most notably drama auditions and productions) to deprive the performers of all but ten audience members, plus the people from URY. The effect this had on the performance cannot be understated; the entire thing felt rather informal and unpolished, friends performing for friends, in stark contrast to the tight, humorous offerings provided in previous shows.
There were some amusing moments however, such as a non-sequiter round on things which were hotter or colder than other things, featuring such objects as “The Cold War” and “Katy Perry”, yet these were pre-scripted events and hence cannot really be attributed to the improvised nature of the show from which most of its humour derives. One of the few half-decent improvised parts of the show was the ending “Ballad of Wikipedia”, yet even this seemed to be cut short compared to previous shows, and Lewis’ team didn’t even have musical backing, again contributing to what seemed to be an ill-prepared show, an idea backed up by the decidedly minimalist backdrops provided (which, to be quite honest, were evidently made using basic text effects in Powerpoint - having your text bounce does not make for a dynamic or engaging title sequence).
Got Booty is, by itself, not as such bad so much as it is lacking. The energy and vigour injected into the show in the 2009/10 redesign has all but disappeared. If this can’t be remedied, then I hate to say it, but I really don’t think that Got Booty has much of a future calling itself a comedy show.
I disagree quite a lot with this review. How can you say a round where audience participation is key (the bridge round) is contrived? Are you really suggesting that the "friends" in the audience had conspired with the panel members beforehand so that they knew what to expect and what they were going to say? Sorry, doesn't make sense.
It's also quite unprofessional to mention the size of an audience in a review. You're supposed to be reviewing the show in its own right, not a snide comment about the lack of audience. You've then judged it automatically. Obviously in an improvised show, the audience is important, but it's the suggestions that come from them that are important, not the actual size of the audience. I've heard of improv troupes in Edinburgh on slow nights performing for three or four people and having them in stitches.
And Lewis Gray's team were doing a rap, so obviously they didn't have musical accompaniment. Have you ever tried rapping to guitar music?
Agree with #1, although I think in this case it was relevant to mention the audience size - it looked to me like the lack of audience (and therefore lack of big reaction), limited the atmosphere and made the show a little stilted.
Oh, I dunno, #1. Competent rappers can spit on pretty much any beat, as long as the tempo doesn't fluctuate too much. This might say something about the quality of their rapping. :V
You must log in to submit a comment.
Report