Paul Merton - Wiltshire Times Review

13th July 2007 7.30pm Memorial Theatre Code: 1306
Author: Chloe Boyce / Standard & Guardian Series News Editor

COMEDIAN and television personality Paul Merton, right, enjoyed his appearance at the 2006 Frome Festival so much he made a return trip for a performance at this year's event.

And not only had the star of Have I Got News For You picked Frome Festival to make his only UK appearance this year, he stuck with the improvisation show that had proved so popular last time round.

This was just as well, as the comic's banter with the audience at the start of the evening revealed a good number of them had seen his first appearance at the festival and were presumably hoping for second helpings.

There was a lovely vibe at the Memorial Theatre as people gathered on Friday for the evening performance, dubbed Paul Merton's Impro Chums.

There was something cosmopolitan about the lively chatter bubbling from the swarms of people waiting outside and inside the foyer for the eagerly-awaited show to begin.

This continued inside as we took our seats, tickets for which had been snapped up months in advance.

The curtain went up and Paul quickly engaged with the audience, before welcoming on the stage his co-hosts for the evening, Richard Vranch, from Frome, Mike McShane, Suki Webster and Lee Simpson.

Paul promised there was no script and that the evening's proceedings would be largely dependent on contributions from the audience, who were only too happy to oblige.

The five experts then proceeded at break-neck speed to work through their acts with help from the audience.

As comedy of this type tends not to travel well when passed on to a third party, I will not attempt to describe the sketches, only to say they were mostly laugh-out-loud funny, and only occasionally a bit smutty and a tad bizarre.

For example, one sketch involved one of the panel guessing a job title based on clues given by the other performers.

The answer? The Scandinavian director of a non-genetically modified badger parade on Groundhog Day.

It was fascinating to watch the five perform. They had to be fairly active moving around the stage to different gags and songs, while managing to keep one step ahead mentally in delivering the next pun.

Their sharpness led me to the conclusion that they must have planned at least some of the gig - not only did they keep it going at a fair pace, it seemed pretty well-oiled.

But I guess you can either make improvised comedy work in front of a live audience or fail miserably.

Luckily, for us it was a massive success and the audience showed its appreciation with gutsy applause, cheers and whistles.

Hopefully our response will be good enough to persuade Paul and friends to return for a 2008 performance.

 

Chloe Boyce / Standard & Guardian Series News Editor

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