MICF: Completely Improvised Potter – Soothplayers

MICF
Completely Improvised Potter
Soothplayers
4 April 2019
Trades Hall – The Meeting Room
to 21 April
comedyfestival.com.au
improvisedpotter.com.au

Completely Improvised Potter

I'm not keeping the wretched secrets this time!  #TellTheSecrets

The Soothplayers started bringing Completely Improvised Shakespeare to Melbourne in 2015 and soon expanded to another great canon with Completely Improvised Potter. It's very serious stuff. Seriously hilarious.

And magical. I don't know how they do it.

Each night a new audience-suggested HP title is drawn from their Goblet of Fire. They have to not infringe on copyright and be PG. Student witches and wizards are welcome, but is it PG, not G.

In Harry Potter and ...  The Magic Carpet Ride, Harry, Ron and Hermione are in Diagon Alley and  check out the carpet store with a 70%-off sale. Ron's too poor to buy anything but Harry's scar tells him to buy the one with Cedric Diggory's face on it. Is it too soon? It's not like Harry hasn't seen Cedric's body lying on the ground in front of him very recently.

Back at Hogwarts, Dumbledore's no help, Neville's become the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, and Cho Chang is getting over Cedric and thinks that Harry has bought her a present – a carpet.

Meanwhile, Snape is hanging with the Death Eaters and You-Know-Who (still with a T) is still faffing around with portkeys as he tries to kill Harry.

And Bellatrix is pissed that she's just a bit on the side, Ron has a never-ending pumpkin pasty, Ginny date crashes Cho and Harry, no one knows what Yaxley does, and Harry escapes death and adds to his trauma.

There are no secrets to keep when the story can never be told again.

The cast dress as the Hogwarts student they would be in a world where the Dark Lord can be played by the same person playing Ginny and where it's natural that Harry is a blond woman in a Slytherin tie. None of which takes anything away from the experience; characters are not what they look like.

Each performer starts with character traits that make them almost instantly recognisable – Hermione is an uptight swat, Lucius likes his pretty long hair – and exaggerate their flaws.  Add a "what if?" – what if Dumbledore decided to say "yes" to everything? – and a knowledge of the books and storytelling that I can't complete with and there's an improvised story that JK herself could be jealous of.

Muggles might have moments when they wonder why the rest of the crowded room is grinning inanely and laughing themselves sick at jokes that need the context of having read all the books more than once. But this show has a "laugh guarantee" and I don't think they've ever had a claim. For the rest of us, it's wonderful to be in a Hogwartsy* room where nearly everyone gets every reference. And that's before the bonus Cursed-Child jokes

So put on your house colours and when you book a ticket for your second show – I don't know if once is enough – make sure you add Completely Improvised Shakespeare.

* Built with stones and old = Hogwartsy