Before the show even starts, members of the improv group The Maydays come around with buckets and pens handing out sheets of paper for ticket holders to write down their deepest secrets anonymously. These audience confessions are the basic for the shows material and title.
There is a church theme to the show as the actors start off the confessions with ‘forgive me father for I have sinned.’ The first confession was then turned into an improved Gospel song complete with chorus and clapping. This particular confession was about a married man sneaking into a strip club which considering the religious tone of the music was pretty comical.
The rest of the show was mostly a series of short skits based on the different audience-written confessions. The five members of the group took turns reenacting the various embarrassing moments and misdeeds. It was exciting knowing that at any moment your confession could be read out and that anticipation made the show thrilling as well as humourous. I was both nervous and curious to see how they would interpret my story and turn it into comedy.
To mix it up a bit, towards the end they picked one confession and did several sketches about that admission. While most of the sketches in this section were enjoyable, they did drag a little. It might have worked better with a different topic but that’s the beauty of improv, it’s unpredictable.
The show ended with The Maydays reading out the remaining confessions from the bucket. From those recently read aloud they picked their favourite to base the closing song around which was a symmetrical way to end the show. Confessions was a great concept for a show and made for an extremely enjoyable hour.
****
Danica Priest
The Maydays: Confessions on at Underbelly, Cowgate until 25 August. More information HERE
