The great suggestions from the audience meant that the Honest Liars had fun making up the script on the spot – exactly what Improv is all about.

The day shone brightly as the players headed for 16th Ave Theatre and a night of improv games.

Being Guy Fawlks night and not many tickets sold, there was a bit of trepidation in the air about having to play to a minimal crowd. But, the Honest Liars should have kept the faith because the number of ‘walk-ins’ swelled the audience to near capacity, and their raucous laughter with brilliant suggestions meant that cracker sparks flew from the stage.

A new game of ‘Sex with Me’ kicked off the show as the players came out with great one-liners. For example – the suggestion was a Rubix cube:

• “Usually only a 12-year-old boy can figure it out” or
• “Takes way too long to finish it”.

A spade and a book were other suggestions that had the crowd laughing right from the show’s start.

‘Pocket Note’ saw Kelly, Sally and Sue building a fence, but when Kelly said she wanted to put deer, sheep and alpacas in behind it, Sally told her that the picket fence would be too low. The notes such as “Don’t tell your mum”, “It wasn’t syphilis”, and “Don’t squeeze it” were seamlessly woven into the story. But the “Good afterbull, cutstiamoon” (drunk talk to a constable) had the crowd in stitches. Kelly ended up holding onto an electric fence, which just about floored her and the audience alike.

Brett, Kathy and Steve were abseiling in the game ‘Scene Three Ways’. This is a game where the ‘director’ changes the scene into different genres – this wee clip is when they had been directed to do the scene as pirates!

It was on to ‘Sign Language Interpreter’ in which Kelly did an outstanding job of signing for the bizarre interview of an expert in teaching racoons to be beekeepers. Between Brett, the expert, and Jon, the interviewer, Kelly was thrown into hilarious poses. She had to come up with signs for “chucking trash outside to get the racoons”, “lazy racoons”, “gnashing of teeth”, and “whipping”.

During the interval, Dave from 16th Ave Theatre took the roll call with surprising names and made sure everyone was back in their seats for the 2nd half.

Jon staffed the ‘Returns Desk’ and was able to help those returning items to figure out what they were returning. This game sees small, medium and large items returned because they are faulty. However, the customer has yet to learn what it is. For example, Sue had a frog which didn’t croak, Kelly, a blind deer, and Brett, an electric bus with a flat tyre. All three managed to guess their items – here’s Brett working out what his large object was.

Other games such as ‘He Said, She Said’ and ‘The Cube’ brought out wonderful stories and lines such as: ‘Maybe you should take steroids to look more like Lance Armstrong’, weird trail names such as “Widow Maker”, which ended up being more a widower maker! The weeds in the garden turned out to be “weed in the attic” and elves stuffing toys with cocaine.

The night’s last game saw Jon in the hot seat interviewing for a divorce lawyer. This was the famous “Twitch Interview”, with each candidate bringing in an unusual twitch or mannerism that Jon had to copy. This game is for all players, and by the end of the interviews, Jon was exhausted from repeating all the cramps he was given.

Another successful night ended, and the audience wandered off home with laughter still ringing in their ears.

Thanks to players

Emcee: Jon
Crew: Fee
Sound engineer: Anthony.

Book your tickets for the next show and join the players for loads of laughs.

1^st Saturday of every month.
16th Ave Theatre.
16th Avenue, Tauranga.
Show Starts: 7.30 p.m.
Licenced bar available.