Friday night, 8pm, and the third Bristol Improv Marathon begins. A collection of over 30 performers (assisted by theatre technicians, musicians and theatre staff) create an entirely improvised, unscripted play using nothing but their skill and imagination. This year it was held at the new Bristol Improv Theatre on St Paul’s Road in Clifton. The title was ‘Check-Out Time at The Grand Hotel’ and the bits I saw included a sketch about a famous writer who dreams of gravel paths, which led into a duet between a bell-hop and a cleaner, followed by some magic unicorns squabbling with dinosaurs on a beach… where do they get the ideas from? Well it’s improv of course, so the performers must deftly make it up as they go along, with help from audience suggestions and shouts from the other players waiting in the wings. Every two hours a new ‘episode’ begins with a 15-minute break in between each episode. On Saturday morning at 10 it was the children’s episode; glove puppets, magic cookies and a song about the rainbow. The performers scoop up the kids who’ve wondered on to the stage area and they become part of the show; it’s like Sesame Street on speed.

During a break, I spoke to a couple of the people involved. John Lomas is part of the Closer Each Day company, which he claims has the world’s longest improvised narrative and is the only serialised theatre show in the UK. “We teamed up with the Bristol Improv Theatre, a company called Degrees of Error, The Unscripted Players and others connected to the Improv community to create this marathon. It’s like the Closer Each Day format but a bit more chaotic and crazy. The improv community in Bristol has a close relationship and we like to give everyone a chance”. Caitlin Campbell warns me that she’s had very little sleep. “I’m the assistant director at Bristol Improv Theatre so I’ve been here since about midday Friday”. She explained that the improv community in Bristol were looking for a dedicated space to perform: “We stumbled across this place, which used to be the Polish Ex-Servicemen’s Club. Amazingly it has a licenced bar and a 100-seat theatre. We worked as a pop-up venue here for a couple of years and now we’ve bought the place”. I scurry back into the show just in time to hear a song about poo and see a piano player balancing a banana on his foot. It’s wacky, weird and wonderful. There is the occasional lull as you might expect from an improv show but this only serves to heighten the tension and make the next, crazy line seem all the funnier.

10 o’clock on Saturday night and the epic 26-hour event draws to a close. The performers, some of whom have been here the whole time, can finally get some rest. Apparently it’s coffee that keeps them going, and the sheer buzz of improvised theatre I think.     ★★★★☆   Adrian Mantle     26^th March 2017