Improv comedy is hard. Getting a D&D group together is also hard. So the obvious solution is to combine the two and put on a show at the Edinburgh Fringe. That’s a perfectly sensible way to do it.
Bottoms Up Theatre’s new show, Mistakes Were Made – Haunted Hospital, is a sequel of sorts to last year’s lower-budget show, Mistakes Were Made. The set-up is still the same; this is a show about a band of adventurers of the sort that you’d find in a game of Dungeons & Dragons or various fantasy video games. The twist here is that audience members are randomly selected to control the action. These lucky people can roll a twenty-sided die and shout out numbers. This instantly changes the flow of the story; the actors might have to swap roles, or the character changes allegiance. During the performance, we saw a chain of characters declare their true love to each other, including an unfortunate horde of zombies that were also part of that scene. It got very silly.
And that’s the point. Mistakes is nominally a show about fantasy gaming, in the sense that the framing for the comedy is about Wizards, Warriors and other weirdoes going on a quest, but at its core, this is a fast-paced comedy improv show. The props have improved, the costumes are just as much fun as ever, and the comedians are funnier.
Last year’s show was barely controlled anarchy. That hasn’t changed, but the actors are now very good at going with the flow. The two stand-out performers are Moira Hamilton (the Wizard) and Frederick Bang (the Barbarian). These two improv artists keep the show’s tempo steady, throwing themselves into any curve ball that the dice presents to them. The rest of the cast is also fantastic at keeping their heads whilst the dice turn everything around.
Mistakes Were Made Haunted Hospital will delight TTRPG fans who love a bit of improv, and we’d love to see what happens if this team were given more time and a budget. It’s the sort of show that would delight fans of Dropout.TV and the like. It’s fresh, new and fun, and the talent on stage is rather good. Fantastic stuff.
You can book tickets here, and check out their instagram here.
