Voices In Your Head

It’s easy to lose count of the number of shows offering improvisational comedy at this year’s Festival. However, I’m willing to stick my neck out and say that you’ve never experienced improv like that presented at “Voices In Your Head”.

Coming across as part improv, part experimental theatre, the conceit is that the performers are guided in their routines by a disembodied Voice – billed as the Voice of “God” but perhaps more accurately the voice of their conscience. On certain cues, members of the audience present them with props that encourage them to tell stories that venture down one avenue or another, while the participants are at the mercy of the Voice that interrogates them about the objects and what they mean to them, prompting ludicrously inventive character pieces that dazzle and shock as they are pushed further and further towards revelations of dark fetishes and childhood secrets. Frequently the performers are penalised, as the Voice demands character-based sincerity and honestly over easy laughs, and as such this can be dark, affecting stuff. Thom Tuck and Milo McCabe really rise to the occasion on this particular night, acting out an awkwardly tragic yet hilarious sexual liaison between a cross dressing policeman and a hairdresser.

Inventive, moving, funny and wildly ambitious – you’ll never see anything quite like it.