The Same Faces: Improvised Comedy At The Little Theatre Leicester Review

DISCLOSURE – TICKETS TO SEE THE SHOW WERE GIFTED TO THE REVIEWER AND GUEST FOR THE PURPOSES OF WRITING THE REVIEW

Reviewed by Leanne W

The Same Faces are one of the biggest improvised comedy troupes in the midlands, and with two award nominations from Leicester Comedy Festival to their name, they are known to produce quality improvised shows.

Fans of Whose Line is it Anyway will be familiar with the set up. Audience shout out suggestions and a talented team on stage create the theatre. This style requires extreme talent and it is right here in Leicester and this week were hosted at The Little Theatre.

Saturday’s performance by The Same Faces Led by MC Tom Young, also featured Allan Smith, Dave Gotheridge, Natalie Beniston, Lindsey Warnes, George Butcher, and Paul Timms on the piano.

The basis for the show is a series of games which requires a varied amount of performers in various roles. Some of the highlights for us included: a game where all arrived at a party and the host was required to guess who they were. Patrons of a pub singing of a trouble to the barman who sang back a solution to the affliction. The absolute stand out was Natalie Beniston who has the most fantastic voice taking on the singing of Minnie the Moocher in the style of a Butlins Red Coat – Hi Di Hidi Hidi Hi and the call back from the audience. Allan Smith also gave some fantastic performances in the variety of roles he was given – I’d happily watch these two alone perform again. Such talent they have.

We were anticipating that there would be more improv plays performed by the group but the evening comprised solely of games, I think as part of a two hour show this could have broken it up a bit. Especially as a couple of the games were of similar style to each other and relied on the cast stepping forward with the response, this at times meant that there were some pauses where the ideas were not as forthcoming as perhaps they would have liked.

Whilst for most of the evening the troupe were completely in tune with one another there were moments where games and scenes ended too soon or not soon enough, Tom Young as MC did well for much of the show but could have been more intuitive for other aspects.

In all this was a really good evening out. One of the best things about this company is that they have a variety of performers at each show and as the audience are controlling the themes you never get the same show twice, meaning you can go every time they perform and see a new show each time.

The performance on Saturday night was a one off for the Little Theatre, though rumour has it that they may be back in the future. In the meantime, they will be performing several shows as part of Leicester Comedy Festival at Wygston’s house on Sundays 8th, 15th and 22nd of February.

Rating: 4/5

https://thelittletheatre.co.uk/
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https://www.comedy-festival.co.uk/