Time Lord: Too Much Doctor Who Is Never Enough

Posted on 05 September 2013

Some impro groups provide a solid evening of entertainment. Some, such as Impro Box, are astonishingly good. Their current season of Time Lord is a testament to the sort of nail-biting engagement you can get when talented performers combine with exuberant storytelling.

Time Lord was developed by David S. Innes. It’s an impro show set within the Dr Who universe that develops stories out of suggestions from the audience. Only this season of Time Lord includes a second half whereby three performers play famous writers telling a story round-robin style with the help of the audience.

This is the second time I’ve been to a Time Lord show. I attended their first season last year for my own amusement and absolutely loved it. Rob Lloyd of Live on Bowen played The Doctor and Vicki Kyriakakis played his companion Melody. My favourite moment was when Jaklene Vukasinovic’s character found a way to observe the lovely shape of The Doctor’s backside.

This season Lloyd is back, but not always playing The Doctor. For the first half of the show Kyriakakis plays The Doctor. Yes, a female Doctor! And not the first time for this group. She is joined by Chris Broadstock playing a Bertie Wooster styled character by the name of Lord Sussex. They must defeat the villainous Lloyd as Maester Black.

Kyriakakis makes a believable Doctor. She infuses the character with warmth, wisdom, and a lot of fun. Broadstock plays a charmingly dimwitted companion with plenty of vibrant energy. Also notable was Jenny Lovell’s performances. She has an astounding memory for detail and her character acting provided a lot of depth to both the first and second half of the show.

In the second half of the show David Innes takes to the stage himself as PG Wodehouse, and is joined by Scott McAteer as Edgar Allan Poe and Tim Redmond as Anton Chekov. Watching this story was like watching an acrobatics act without a net. Unlike film or television, the audience gets to experience the delicious tension of wondering, will they pull it off? The three authors set up different scenes in their respective styles and somehow bring the story together at the end.

Lloyd and Kyriakakis are back as Doctor and companion Melody: a crowd favourite combination. Redmond’s performance was so delightful, he was beginning to steal the show. His comic Chekov needs to be explored sometime. I was impressed by the improvised music of Matthew Hadgraft. He managed to weave together the music of Jeeves and Wooster with the Dr Who themes, plus whatever else was needed.

Overall, Time Lord is a delightful evening of entertainment worth seeing more than once. The exceptional performances made it impossible to tell that the Impro Box performers weren’t working from a script. Yet again, I loved it.

The Impro Box: Time Lord
03-07 September
7:30pm at Club Voltaire

Peace and kindness,

Katherine


Responses are closed for this post.

Recent Posts

Tag Cloud

constitution environment human rights united nations

Meta

Katherine Phelps is proudly powered by WordPress and the SubtleFlux theme.

Copyright © Katherine Phelps