Avocado Presents: An Improvised Play at 21 Soho
For anyone who has had a prior brush with improvised theatre, one knows the defining quality of improv is routinely deafening silence. In most cases, the silence is the driving plot of the thing, the underlying character motivation, the very foundation of everything that will take place on stage. Said silence must be filled at any cost, and any word or action will do. For many in the audience, goodwill is essential for staving off what can be a uniquely stressful experience, but the results can also feel unusually intimate, even collaborative. If an improv show comes together, the audience is an essential component, if only for the unspoken agreement shared between those in attendance that we will see this through, better judgement be damned.
At the outset of this performance of Avocado’s The Improvised Play, we awkwardly lurch into a face-off between a school troublemaker in detention and the inept teacher attempting to discipline him. Were one to make a good faith effort to earnestly engage with the dramaturgy of the material, one could say that there is an awkwardness in the teacher’s characterisation. On the one hand, a ne’er do well supplying his student with a cigarette on school grounds, and on the other a passionate educator attempting to extol the virtues of math to a wayward pupil. One might also wonder if the boy’s tragic family history (incarcerated father, substance-abusing mother) feels tonally at odds with the later sitcom hijinks.
Of course, little of this is especially significant when measured against the real frisson of improvised theatre: the sustained ingenuity of the performers, conjuring one moment to the next until something resembling a traditional theatrical structure takes shape (or, alternatively, embracing the freedom of total chaos). For this particular performance –possibly as a consequence of an act’s warm-up phase – the gears grind slowly. Much of The Improvised Play feels effortful to a fault, offering proof that when delivered in halting silences, theatrical improvisation can result only in a drama without structure, a comedy absent laughs and a study in suspense of the wholly unintended kind.
Nonetheless, the unique persistence of the crowd under the circumstances created a shared, communal commitment to seeing what the play’s ultimate destination would be. There is a certain amount of unity in the unspoken agreement to good-naturedly and supportively hold down the fort, and perhaps that is as pure an encapsulation of the spirit of theatregoing as can be found.
Ultimately, the contents of an improvised play will inevitably shift from performance to performance, and other audiences may be fortunate to see the performers strike upon a richer creative vein at a different show. As it stands, on other nights, a more dynamic flow may never be unearthed, but there is cause for optimism that things will only improve with time.
Thomas Messner
Photos: Courtesy of Avocado Improv
Avocado Presents: An Improvised Play is at 21 Soho until 5th December 2025. For further information or to book, visit the theatre’s website here.
Watch the trailer for Avocado Presents: An Improvised Play at 21 Soho here:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
RSS