Review: THE LONDON 50-HOUR IMPROVATHON, Wilton's Music Hall

Directed by Adam Meggido and Ali James, The London 50-hour Improvathon is exactly what it says on the tin - a show that takes place over fifty hours in London, bringing together improvisational actors to create an absolutely wild weekend. Starting at 7:00 PM on Friday, with 25 2-hour episodes running with only 20-minute intervals in between them until 9:00 PM on Sunday, including a family-friendly episode on Sunday at 11:00 AM!

While many appeared as guests for a few episodes, there were some, nicknamed the “Full 50 Plays,” who kept going throughout the entire weekend through every single episode - Seamus Allen, Ruth Bratt, Justin Brett, Jamie Cavanagh, Belinda Cornish, Alan Cox, Mats Eldøen, Dylan Emery, Charlotte Gittins, Gabrizio Lobello, Inbal Lori, Mark Meer, Nell Moonie Mackenzie and John Oakes. 

A live band, composed of the rotating group of Christopher James Ash, Jordan Paul Clarke, Duncan Walsh Atkins, Richard Baker, Ed Zanders, Craig Apps, Nathan Gregory, Juliet Colyer, Andrew Woolf, Chloe Potter, Bar Markovitch, Oliver Izod, Bianca Fung and Sam Peña, improvised along with the actors on stage, coming up with jams on the spot as needed or directed. 

I must admit that I did not make it through the entire fifty hours of the show, but I managed to make 4 of the 25 episodes for a total of 8 hours of improv over the weekend. And for me, someone relatively new to the world of improvisational comedy, this was quite a lot! Some of the guest players I saw throughout my time included Tai Campbell, Julie Clare, Josh Darcy, Pippa Evans, Jinni Lyons, Sally Hodgkiss, Rufus Hound, Ellie Morris, Phil Pellew, Andrew Pugsley, Lucy Trodd and Henry Shields. 

The improvathon, which was titled “The Wedding Party,” takes place in Everafter Manor, a popular spot in the UK for weddings. The characters range from staff members to couples, including some ghosts! Some of my favourite characters included Seamus John Allen’s Sister Margaret Iphegenia, a nun who took LSD and discovered Jesus was a middle-aged Jewish woman, Pippa Evans as the non-nonsense Marion Reasonable and Mark Meer‘s Dr. Cranberry Bird, a psychologist and parapsychologist who always felt as though he was three steps ahead of every other character. 

While most of the show focuses on the weddings taking place at Everafter Manor, there are also some moments in which the directors have the cast take part in a range of improvisational games, including the iconic Ladies Erotic Book Club, in which the ladies of the show read erotic novels, creating them one word at a time, leading to hilarious chaos! Other games included Sit, Stand, Lie Down (where three actors must be doing one of each action at a time) and another in which performers had to switch their emotions after every line. 

If one improvement could be made to the improvathon, it would be to allow the scenes to go for a bit longer than they did, as Meggido and James had a tendency to cut them off quite quickly, starting a new scene with an entirely different plotline. Sometimes the directions to the actors were a bit confusing or completely took away from the character development that had been growing, which led to some frustrations for those hoping to see the plot continue throughout the episode. 

I returned to Everafter Manor for Episode 25, the final episode in the improvathon, and several audience members who had attended for 30+ hours filled me in on what I had missed. Spoiler alert - it was a lot and, out of context, made little to no sense based on the six hours I had seen in the beginning. 

Seeing all of the performers in the final episode was quite the interesting experience, especially those who had been going for the full 50 hours! Even with the recap I’d received from other audience members, I found myself missing out on a lot of the inside jokes and callbacks, making me wish I had been able to commit to the entire improvathon (who knows how delirious I would have been writing this review?!).

In an absolutely magical moment, as each of the characters were saying their goodbyes to Everafter Manor, Rufus Hound got down on one knee and proposed to Sally Hodgkiss. At first, it seemed as though Hound was proposing in character, but after using Hogkiss’ real name, the audience and cast went wild, realising that this was actually happening! 

The London 50-hour Improvathon is a fascinating form of long-term improvisation that pushes both actors and audience members to their limit, all for the joy of performance. The actors do an incredible job keeping it together, using the energy of each other and the audience to keep going even in the final hours. We’ll see if I can make it for the full fifty hours next year!

The London 50-hour Improvathon ran from 8 to 10 March at Wilton’s Music Hall.

Photo Credit: Claire Bilyard

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