Review: FILM CLUB - AN IMPROVISED COMEDY, VAULT Festival

"I feel really awkward at these kinds of things"

Walking into Film Club - An Improvised Comedy, I had high hopes. There were songs from movie soundtracks playing and the audience seemed to be looking forward to a fun show of improv. The eight members of Film Club came out on stage with great enthusiasm, waving and smiling at the audience.

The show starts with some audience interactions, in which audience members are encouraged to yell out their favorite movies all at once. But once the Film Club asked audience members to individually talk about their favourite movie, the crowd went silent, save for one brave soul who shared their love for Catch Me If You Can. The actors seemed unfamiliar with the movie - and, to be quite honest, so did the audience members! Audience members and actors alike then shared their favourite "con" movies, building up a few different scenes from movies like Home Alone, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and The Departed.

Unfortunately, whether it was due to a lack of audience enthusiasm or an unfamiliarity with "conmen thriller" movies, the show was quite boring, with the actors simply recreating the movie scenes based on their descriptions from audience members with one or two slightly silly twists. In fact, the funniest and the most creative part of the show for me was one of the characters randomly being named Jeremy Bentham, and the historical reference failed to pay off in any way, leaving me even more disappointed. The final scene attempted to tie in some of the earlier scenes but only led to some long, dragged-out conversations that were nearly identical to the scenes that the characters were originally in.

While most of the Film Club actors were individually funny, at times it felt like they did not have much experience acting with each other, struggling to quickly bounce off one another in the different scenes. The reaction times were a bit slower than I expected from an improv group. One of my favorite things about the VAULT Festival and its unique venue under Waterloo is seeing how performers react to the loud trains above them, and it was a bit disappointing to see the train interruption only used as a joke once later in the show, with the other times simply being awkward pauses. Some of the actors were barely involved throughout the hour-long show and I wish we had seen more of them.

Ultimately, Film Club - An Improvised Comedy is a show that may have been better with a more enthusiastic audience and a funnier genre of movie, as the "conmen thriller" really failed to get many laughs from the crowd. While the Film Club seemed enthusiastic, it also felt as though they were unprepared to be paired off into scenes, each having their own motivations and characters that failed to blend well together into a fun storyline.

Film Club - An Improvised Comedy ran at the VAULT Festival on 11 and 12 March at 4:30 PM in the Crypt at The Vaults.

Photo Credit: VAULT Festival

VAULT Festival has been left without a venue for next year. You can contribute to the #SaveVAULT campaign here.

To post a comment, you must register and login.