We sent our reviewer Damian to see St Doctor’s Hospital: The Improvised Medical Drama

I’m a fan of Improvised comedy, in particular longform narrative (meaning an improvised play, typically using a single prompt at the start ), so St Doctor’s Hospital should be a good fit for me.

The show opened with Graham Dickson as the host – he sought and found an audience member willing to have a little chat. The show would be inspired by that, with no further audience interaction. A very engaging start which drew the room together very nicely.

Each show will be styled as a hospital drama, but each will be completely different. Today’s was rather raunchy as the interviewee was an actual doctor who had once had a porn-influenced patient who was concerned about penis-size.

The Free Association are clearly an incredibly talented group, who know how to improvise well together. They created a coherent (if x-rated and surreal) story about a porn-fixation epidemic breaking out at the hospital. They started well with a clear goal: no vague hedging or confusion as one may see with less experienced teams. – a cure had to be found! There was a strong B-plot about peculiar pirates: this was hilarious, but was beautifully reintegrated at the end.

As in all improv, we’re watching 3 shows: the ostensible story; the BTS generation of a script and direction; and the interactions of the actors. There were plenty of moments where we could enjoy the improvisers toying with each other, but never at the expense of the performance or story. And I think every aspect of the initial prompt got included in a meaningful way.

This was a truly brilliant show – and I’ve seen them before, so can vouch that it’s not a fluke.

***** 5 Stars