A Great Start

By hlimprovers | February 16, 2021

The first show of 2021 turned out to be a great start to the Honest Liars’ show year.

The timing was perfect as the players geared up with the show’s theme being Romance. It’s February – Valentine month, and so the balloons and rose petals decked the Jam Factory as the crew got the stage and chairs set for the night’s performance.

The players arrived at the theatre in plenty of time to get their funny bones well and truly warmed up before the audience began trickling in. And before anyone could say “Curtain Call” the seats were full, the show commenced and the laughter started.

Melissa warmed up the crowd, which didn’t take much as many were repeat devotees who already knew that the show’s success depended on those sitting in the seats.

The first quick-fire game, “Out of the Hat” had the players stepping forward with one-liners to topics such as “People you wouldn’t want to meet at a nudist colony”, “Unfortunate wedding night confessions” and “World’s Worst Oscar acceptance speech”. The next game was a new one for the audience. “Laugh Elimination”. One for all players who must NOT make the audience laugh. Turns out to be not an easy task.

With both audience and players fired up the games began in earnest.

“The Clap” game started the Romance for the night with Ian giving Melissa a Valentine gift. However, it was wrapped in newspaper, and turned out to be a Moro bar, not exactly the most romantic gesture. But the three teams played brilliantly with their topics clapping for the best words to continue their scenes. Finally, the last clap had them all naked, befitting for the occasion.

It was then time for the “Pocket Note” game, always a crowd favourite. The situation Melissa, Fee and Kathy found themselves in was at the Zoo. Melissa and Kathy were lovers who were looking at the baboons when Fee, their gynecologist turned up. The notes did provide a fair amount of hilarity as the girls wove them into the scene. Even “stop snoring” became the tattoo that was on Kathy’s derriere. And “I’m a doctor” was a very apt line for the doctor’s licence plate much to the audience’s enjoyment.

The great “Hollywood Director” game saw the scene played in different themes. The audience’s suggestion of gondoliers talking about their business soon had one of them singing “O Sol Mio” much to the other two’s disgust. The second version was a romantic comedy, and the third a Western with the gondoliers on horseback offering horse rides for whiskey and not a Gondola in sight.

Onto the stage came the Rookies hell bent on strutting their stuff. The first game saw Ian, Sue and Matt in “Alphabet”. The topic from the audience was a proposal which seemed odd at first with three players. But they rose to the challenge, and before long they were in a churchyard doing Gothic stuff as a thruple. They ended up in an X-rated underground club!

Their next game was “Space Jump” in which Kevin joined in to make up the fourth player. Sue began with a Valentine Day Jewellery store heist. When Matt arrived, the scene changed to a Vet trying to get a thermometer out of a giraffe’s bottom. Ian’s scene had the boys wanting to go out for pizza much to the healthy mother’s admonishing. Finally, Kevin put up a brilliant scene of a surgeon who needed to have the instruments cleaned. Quick as a wink, Sue began licking them and the “Oooooh’s” from the audience were quickly replaced by laughter.

Kathy, aka Rainy Mist, was the contestant for the “Dating” game which saw her try to choose between Kevin the clean freak, Matt, playing bone made bagpipes and Jamie Oliver played by Ian. When Matt said, he liked to shop for tartan Kathy responded that tartan in her country equated to flannel pyjamas of which she wouldn’t be opposed to if Matt had some. But it was ‘Jamie’ who got the girl in the end.

The “Themed Restaurant” saw Kevin and Fee having a romantic dinner aboard the Titanic. There was a lovely violinist, plenty of ice for their drinks a bit of listing going on and even one ‘waiter’ who wanted to rearrange their ‘deckchairs’. You can use your imagination as to how that dinner ended.

After the restaurant, it was time for “The Cube” another favourite, caught in this snippet:

Finally the last game of “Puppets” had the audience in stitches as the puppet masters, Leonie and Bevan who were brave enough to volunteer, worked Kelly and Matt into various positions as they created the scene.

Now if you’re an avid reader of these blogs, you will know what comes next. Once the show was over, and the lights turned off the players then headed off to the Mood Lounge where, this time, several of the audience members joined them for a celebratory drink to end a most successful night.