Content warning: Suicide
What happens when you take ‘herb garden’, ‘lackadaisical’ and ‘the murder was horrible, yet the wind was whispering’? An Improbable Musical! Playing at the Hackney Empire for a limited period, this new production is different every night, with audience suggestions used to create the plot and the storyline made up as the show progresses.
The Hackney Empire itself is one of London’s most beautiful theatres. Designed by renowned architect Frank Matcham and completed in 1901 the space has seen a variety of uses over the years, including as a musical hall and television studio. It’s always a pleasure to experience the vast space in use as it was originally intended – it truly is stunning!
At the start of the show, the audience were asked to provide suggestions for a ‘good place’, a ‘happy word’ and a ‘beautiful sentence’. These translated into the words given at the start of this piece, and with that we had the plot of our musical. One of the joys of improvised productions is that every performance will be different, crafted using these words and augmented with an array of props, puppetry and songs acquired based on the whims of the performers. Sadly, whilst this should have been a strength of the show, it ultimately led to us being extremely disappointed with the result.
That’s not to say that there weren’t highlights: the ease with which rhymes and characters were created was clear to see, whilst our feet were certainly tapping away to some of the improvised songs (‘Pick Your Herbs’ deserves its own show, frankly). Farcical by nature, the nature of improv is that elements are introduced as quickly as they’re forgotten; despite a brief aside with some pensioners (who magically acquired walking sticks halfway through the sketch) they were then never to be seen again as we returned to our focus on the herb garden, itself created by brown paper which soon metamorphosed into a ‘dust cake’ (another song we’d like to see a musical around, actually) before becoming ‘the Ancient Pebble’. That said, some of these moments were laboured for a little too long without changing things up, resulting in the scenes becoming stale as quickly as they started. The lack of a plot can be both a strength and a weakness of improvisation, and this was especially true for Improbable.
This was also, however, the downfall of the show. Advertised as suitable for ages 14 and over, and with no trigger warnings provided for challenging topics, you would be forgiven for thinking that this show is family friendly. This is not the case. Whilst we can slide over the numerous ‘f-bombs’ littered throughout the show (many of which were, in our opinion, unnecessary), we can’t excuse an extremely uncomfortable and out-of-context reference to suicide at a railway station. Whilst we guessed it might be coming, it made for extremely uncomfortable and unexpected viewing, especially the lack of warning for this. Whilst it’s not unexpected for improvisation to take unexpected twists and turns, it is inexcusable in 2022, in our opinion, to have such topics on the table and not warn about them potentially appearing. Taken with the lacklustre moments earlier on, we were close to walking out at this point, but managed to sit through the last fifteen minutes or so with gritted teeth. Whilst we’re not a duo to shy away from dark humour, we cannot condone such unnecessary and unexpected moments (and, based on the gasps in the auditorium, clearly were not the only ones taken aback by this) considering current affairs and recent increases in railway suicides. If you are affected by this and would like to speak to someone, you can call the Samaritans (in the UK) for free on 116 123 or email email [email protected] 24/7, 365.
That said, we shouldn’t ignore one of the undoubted highlights of the show, which was the crafting of a duck out of a tea set. Saucers, cups and a tea pot were all amalgamated into a stunning puppetry display, something that should have been a highlight of the show but was unfortunately very quickly overshadowed. This calm moment was tenuously linked with a number of the story lines, augmented by further farcical improvisations from the performers.
An Improbable Musical isn’t without its merits, and – as we are told at the start of the show – you will undoubtedly see a completely different performance. However, this doesn’t excuse the fact that such themes are ‘on the table’ to start with, particularly for a performance that is advertised towards family audiences. Whilst we were attending on complimentary tickets for Press Night, this is an honest review and we are unable to recommend the show based on our own experiences. We have declared this to the team prior to the publication of this review.
An Improbable Musical is playing at the Hackney Empire until 26 October, with plans for a 2023 tour to be announced. Tickets are available.
