The Upcoming
  • Cinema & Tv
    • Movie reviews
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Show reviews
  • Music
    • Live music
  • Food & Drinks
    • News & Features
    • Restaurant & bar reviews
    • Interviews & Recipes
  • Theatre
  • Art
  • Travel & Lifestyle
  • Literature
  • Fashion & Beauty
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Competitions
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

CultureTheatre

The London Jam 2017: Almost Ibsen at Wilton’s Music Hall

The London Jam 2017: Almost Ibsen at Wilton’s Music Hall | Theatre review
18 January 2017
Lucas Cumiskey
Avatar
Lucas Cumiskey
18 January 2017

It’s the London Jam at Wilton’s Music Hall, where skilled acting groups treat theatre-goers to bespoke improvisations. There is something for everyone in this six-day jamboree, a festival of thespian spontaneity, which is set to culminate in an epic 50-hour Lord of Thrones improvathon.

Tuesday evening and the audience clamour to be entertained by the Norwegian Almost Ibsen acting group, a company comprising Torgny G Aanderaa, Nils Petter Mørland and their special guest Charlotte Gittins. These are talented practitioners of the improvised arts, who create one-act Ibsen-style plays through nothing but the prompts from the audience and their own versatility on the stage.

They ask theatre-goers for a relationship, occupation, object and a title, and we end up with a name worthy of Ibsen: The Darkness of the Fjords emerges as our title. Such interactivity in shaping the play is exhilarating and really drums up enthusiasm in the audience. However, once the performance commences, the fourth wall convention is respected.

This is a tale about a cosmopolitan veterinarian (Mørland) returning to his rural beginnings and entering employment with a wealthy landowner, who is played by Torgyny. However, this quaint pastoral set-up isn’t to last. The landowner’s wife, played to perfection by Gittins, is trapped like a caged bird in matrimony and pines after freedom and the affections of the veterinarian.

The goings-on are initially hilarious, particularly the wife’s crude seduction attempts, however the mood soon dampens. A faithful Ibsen imitation requires a dollop crashing of tragedy. Cue the son of the household, who comes home, forcing his father to confront a shipwrecked marriage. Heated arguments ensue and some very convincing family drama culminates with the father downing himself in the Fjord.

There is a particularly satisfying scene, where the husband lambasts his wife for being a cold and venomous creature, or rather a rotten pineapple, which is the object prompt supplied by the audience at the beginning of the show, and the ludicrously random item is tied into the play so adeptly by Torgyny, that it could have been the most famous line in a script. This was improvisation at its very best. Slick, assured and brilliant.

The end result was, as Ken Campbell would have it, “better than scripted stuff”.

★★★★★

Lucas Cumiskey

The London Jam and Improvathon is at Wilton’s Music Hall from 16th until 22nd January 2017, for further information or to book visit here

Related Itemsreview

More in Theatre

The Father and the Assassin at the National Theatre

★★★★★
Natallia Pearmain
Read More

Dirty Dancing the Movie in concert at Apollo Theatre

★★★★★
Jim Compton-Hall
Read More

My Fair Lady at the London Coliseum

★★★★★
Michael Higgs
Read More

“When you’re presented with different dilemmas in life, you respond accordingly”: Debbie Kurup on The Cher Show

Mae Trumata
Read More

2:22 A Ghost Story at Criterion Theatre

★★★★★
Michael Higgs
Read More

The House of Shades at Almeida Theatre

★★★★★
Csilla Tornallyay
Read More

Grease at Dominion Theatre

★★★★★
Cristiana Ferrauti
Read More

House of Ife at Bush Theatre

★★★★★
Selina Begum
Read More

Banter Jar at Lion & Unicorn Theatre: “An authentic and timely one-woman show”

★★★★★
Jessica Wall
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Theatre review

Lucas Cumiskey

The London Jam 2017

★★★★★

Dates

16th January - 22nd January 2017

Price

From £13.50

Links & directions

TwitterFacebookWebsiteMap

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Albert Adrià reopens Enigma on 7 June as a “fun-dining” restaurant and cocktail bar
    Food & Drinks
  • The Road Dance
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Paolo Nutini at the 100 Club
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Crimes of the Future: Three new clips from David Cronenberg’s dystopian body horror film
    Cannes
  • When You Finish Saving the World
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Marcel!
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • More than Ever (Plus que Jamais)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Plan 75
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Enys Men
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • The Stranger
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • More than Ever (Plus que Jamais)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Plan 75
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Dirty Dancing the Movie in concert at Apollo Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Feminine Power: The Divine to the Demonic at the British Museum
    ★★★★★
    Art
  • Eo (Hi-Han)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why
With the support from:
International driving license

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Raising Martha at Park Theatre | Theatre review
xXx: Return of Xander Cage | Movie review