Review: ‘Title Goes Here’ An Improv Comedy, Canal Café Theatre

Even as improv shows go, this one is especially casual. 

It is hosted by show creator Brad Collett in a conversational style, with him and performers Beri Kahane and Richard Delroy veiled behind a pretty non-existent fourth wall. It is essentially just a fun hour of improv games without a theme or thread. There are lots of different formats, which add enough excitement and variation to the ninety minutes to keep things fresh and light. However, with a rotating cast of performers and such a wide variety of games and scenes, the show is as nondescript as the title suggests.

The first is the best and produces some laugh-out-loud results. It centres around a date situation, featuring a waiter, a ‘weird’ character given a quirk by the audience, and the other half of the date – who steps outside and covers their ears before coming back in to guess the quirk. The audience on review night came up with gems such as becoming aroused when there was an awkward silence, and being terrified by questions. The guessing element really raises the stakes here; it feels like a glorified game of ‘guess the name on the forehead’. The game works so well because the situation of being on a date is clear and grounded.

They have classic games, like scenes beginning with a location and a relationship, and more unusual ones, like a Dragon’s Den–themed game where one performer brings out an object and sells it to the other two as something it does not first appear to be. I would have invested in the light-up tutu, which becomes a bridal veil, rather than the knee-rest shaped like a head. A game where the trio perform scenes based on a famous film, suggested by the audience, with a twist, again given by the audience, is a little too complicated to produce interesting results. I wouldn’t know where to begin producing a minute-long scene which crosses Barbie with Hamlet either.

The second half is a little harder to get through. We have the titular game, Title Goes Here, where the audience provide a title for a film and they make it. On the night of the review, they were given ‘Fishing for Friendship’. The team produced a relatively confused narrative with some funny moments, mainly centred around Collett’s character, who appeared dressed like a Sainsbury’s bag in a boxy orange windbreaker and burgundy top, complete with god-like abilities. It was perhaps a misguided choice to focus so much on the ‘fishing’ element, treated very literally with mimes of fishing rods, rather than the ‘friendship’ element; the latter might have given them more direction towards producing a clearer, more engaging narrative less reliant on object-based gags.

The final game, in which a generic track from different music genres is played and one improviser comes up with lyrics to a song based on a title from an audience member, is a fun idea, but only if the performers are comfortable with singing. It does seem as though they would rather not be doing it. 

Other than that, Delroy in particular is very at home onstage; his ability to switch easily into many different accents adds excitement to the games. Collett brings a comical, somewhat camp energy, and Kahane is very funny pretending to be aroused at awkward silences. They make a watchable, lighthearted show with highlights and dips, but with so much variation and so little structure or theme, it ultimately lacks a strong identity. There is nothing terrible here, but not much that stands out either.

The show is created by Brad Collett and tours the UK with a rotating cast.
Produced by Gazelle Theatre

‘Title Goes Here’ An Improv Comedy has completed its run at Canal Café Theatre. It is on tour throughout the UK, including a run at EdFringe in August.