Review: Totally Looped

This piece was originally written for a Web Journalism module.

Victoria Hall, Hanley
Victoria Hall, Hanley

Totally Looped came to the Victoria Hall in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, for one night only on March 12 2009. This new show features a rotating cast of five stand-up comedians and relies heavily on audience participation. As lead comedian and compere Marcus Brigstocke (known for The Late Edition on BBC Four and Love Actually – the 2003 directorial debut of Richard Curtis) deadpanned at the beginning – “You get what you pay for – if you don’t help out, it’s going to be rubbish!”.

The Victoria Hall is a nice, modern-looking building which seems to be built around the much older Hanley Town Hall. It was easy enough to walk to from where I live and for this reason I may consider seeing other productions there in the future.

Marcus Brigstocke, as arguably the most well-known of the five comedians in the show, began proceedings by asking the audience for their favourite films. In typical style he mocked many of the choices but agreed with others. There were a few of these sessions, such as asking for films people were embarrassed about admitting they loved!

The show itself was based around films. The main part of the show, which I assumed to be so as it was mentioned in the show advertising and was the longest part, involved the cast watching a film clip with the volume muted and improvising dialogue on the spot. Supposedly none had seen the clips beforehand – unless of course they had happened to see the film itself. Many were black and white films and were quite old. I must admit, the only film I recognised was a clip from Notting Hill featuring Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant and Emma Chambers, better known to most of us as Alice from The Vicar of Dibley.

The audience were asked to shout out invented fictional film titles, and the cast would then make up dialogue on the themes suggested to the silent film clips. This, along with the fact that before the clip began nobody knew how many people would be in it, nor what genders they would be, added to the hilarity.

The show lasted for about two hours with a quick interval for drinks and on the whole, while I think £18.50 was  a bit too expensive (regular ticket, concessions £16.50) I still had a very enjoyable night and finally got to meet Marcus Brigstocke at the stage door after!