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Camden Fringe
An extremely silly and amusing hour as a willing victim finds himself in the midst of a show for which he has had no preparation at all. Summary
Rating
Good
Scriptless makes no excuses for its attempts to tap into the well-trodden genre of shows where a prepared performance is apparently let down by something going drastically wrong. And there’s a whole sub-genre within that where an actor has somehow gone rogue, as perfected by Sh!tfaced Shakespeare. It’s basically drama meets improv. At its best it allows for some well-controlled slapstick in what should otherwise be a straight piece of theatre. At its worse, it’s a rather painful experience. After all, if it were that easy everyone would be doing it.
Scriptless falls, thankfully, much more towards the former than the latter on that sliding scale. Their spin on the rogue actor uses the idea that someone has dropped out last minute, so a replacement is called upon. But yes, you’ve guessed it, the replacement (tonight that’s a constantly bemused looking Max Potter) hasn’t had time to read the script, and is thus forced to improvise their entire role, whilst around him the remaining five actors do their best to keep straight faces and not laugh at the absurdity of it all.
But almost as if creator Kieran Jordan didn’t trust this simple idea to be sufficient on its own, he then throws in the concept of it being an am-dram production, thus giving us a superb mix of the characters you’d watch in such productions. There’s the wannabe thespian, giving it all the gusto of Olivier doing Shakespeare, and another who demonstrates no acting abilities whatsoever, probably just grateful for a reason to get out for a night. It’s a fun set-up but one that at times feels wasted here. The rogue actor and the am-dram concepts create a clash as both fight for equal attention. Then as the show progresses, the am-dram idea seems forgotten about, which is a real shame as it has much more to give.
Each night is also completely different; both the script and the scriptless actor. This means any script needs to be simple in construction – you can’t really expect a cast to learn anything too complex for just one night. This simplicity helps though because, after all, we’re here for the chaos, not the plot. It’s cleverly written, with touchpoints for when the scriptless is called upon to fill in the blanks. Even simple yes/no questions leave Potter flummoxed as he desperately tries to work out which is needed for the correct development of the plot, whilst other moments, when he is asked for more complex contributions such as telling the group how he and his fiancé met, put him firmly on the spot to adlib, leading to plenty of genuinely funny moments as he desperately tries to improvise.
Within the script are also breadcrumbs dropped for later callback, giving it a feel of Tom Davis’ BBC series Murder in Successville. Except there’s no pre-warning of this: Potter clearly doesn’t realise what is happening, and likely nor does half the audience. So, much like the am-dram concept, it leaves the idea under-utilised and missing the chance to add a little more jeopardy to proceedings.
There’s clearly audience appetite for shows that mash up improv with drama, but here it feels like Jordan has tried to squeeze too many different features into his format, never quite committing to any of them. Even so, Scriptless is still a fun, silly hour of chaotic slapstick and, with the right focus and development, it could grow into a show that has audiences returning over and over to discover just how different it is with a new victim each time.
Cast: Fraser Adams, Max Aspen, Grace Boag-Matthews, Sam Plumbe, Elysia Wilson
Written, directed and produced by: Kieran Jordan
Sound and lighting by: Rebecca Lyon
Scriptless has completed its run at this year’s Camden Fringe.
You can read more about Scriptless in our recent interview with Kieran Jordan here.
