Photo credit: Supplied by the production
Anyone who has seen and enjoyed the adult version of the Showstopper improv musical show will know that every performance is different. That’s true too - and how - for the kids version of the show, as was shown to an excited audience at the Soho Walthamstow.
Everything about Showstopper! The Kids Show reveals a carefully-crafted understanding of what works - and entertains - the target 5+ audience (and quite a few younger than that). Before the show begins, the cast are out in the auditorium making friends, or doing something striking on stage to get attention and draw the audience in. The young audience quickly accept them as friends and settle back (or more often leap out of their seats) to enjoy the show. The warm-up is masterly, and the audience came up with the best whispered cheer I’ve heard in a long time.
The adult show has a tenuous framing narrative about the need to put on a replacement show; the kids’ version doesn’t bother with that and just asks what kind of story the audience wants. Rather than taking shouted audience suggestions, which would favour those with loud voices, the cast (dressed in bright colours so they can be spotted) go out into the sea of raised hands and choose people to speak. By the end of the performance, a good proportion of the audience had had a chance to participate in this way.
As with all of the best improv shows, the basic rule is to go with what is thrown out and make something of it – however bizarre. And these kids did bizarre well, as would be expected from this age of audience. We ended up watching a musical about a dance monkey (called Catbus) who turned into a dog when he ate bananas. He could only be cured of this by visiting Jupiter and eating space apples guarded by Titania, a fairy with a giant bottom. Also in the mix were characters such as a talking paint pot and a dog singing about being caught in a self-destructive cycle…
Well, you had to be there, and it was remarkable how the cast created a coherent narrative out of a vast number of suggestions – not to mention songs, choreography and lots of incidental music from the three-piece band on stage. The total involvement of the audience was shown in many ways, not least when the instruction to look for a character led to one determined young boy seizing her by the arm and marching her to the stage.
About twenty minutes into the show, the cast asked for volunteers from the audience to come on stage. At this point in other shows, a few lucky kids get chosen and everyone else is disappointed. Not this time: everyone who wanted to join the cast on stage was welcomed, until there must have been more than a hundred young performers facing what was left of the audience. Within moments, they were improvising the words and movements for a magic spell. hanging on every word from the cast member leading them.
The cast of six are drawn from the Showstoppers stable; a few were familiar faces but with no programme, press release or even video screen, they will have to remain anonymous, as will the musicians and creative team. Whoever they were, they know what they’re doing, from the carefully chosen cartoon props on stage to the final meet and greet in the foyer for selfies and stickers.
The show has an important series of messages, whether that be that all stories are valid or that everyone can be a storyteller. I’m sure many in the audience will have continued telling the story of a dance monkey in Antarctica when they got home, as well as being inspired to make up other narratives. Showstopper! The Kids Show is interactive, thoughtful, skilled and inventive: and often very funny for the young audience and their accompanying adults.
Not to be missed and just as entertaining if seen again and again, as it’s totally different every time.
***** Five stars
Reviewed by: Chris Abbott
Showstopper! The Kids Show plays at Soho Theatre Walthamstow until 31 Oct, with further info here.
