Thursday 1 September 2011

Baby Wants Candy - A Competition

London Improv have a pair of tickets for each evening performance of Baby Wants Candy, 7-10th September 2011 at the Leicester Square Theatre for you to win.

Simply send an email with the subject line "London Improv Competition" to bwclondon@gmail.com - include the night you wish to go and your suggestion for a title of a musical Baby Wants Candy could perform.
We’ll let you know after the weekend if you’ve won. Otherwise buy your tickets at BWC Tickets.


Don't know much about Baby Wants Candy? Read this for a bit and you'll have an idea of how cool they are:
"It was the summer of 2001 and I was at the Edinburgh Festival for the first time in my life. Stepping out onto the Royal Mile it felt almost instantly like I’d come home. We have a lot of knife throwers and annoying student clown acts in my family.
And we all drink heavily.

I was operating sound for my student Musical Theatre Society’s production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood and without the burden of performing and all its attendant nerve jangles, I found I had time to see a lot of shows. Originally, I had intended to see different productions each day but that was before I went, on a whim, to see Baby Wants Candy: The Improvised Musical. One hour of jaw-dropping, gut-busting, mind-blowing theatre later and I was hooked for the rest of the run.

Because they made it up.

Every night, every performance, an entire one hour musical spawned from a single audience title suggestion. Unbelievable. I had never seen anything like it. This mad, talented bunch of improvisors seemed superhuman to me on almost every level. The precision of their comedy timing, the beauty of their harmonies, the deft sweep of their narrative. Every night I wondered if this was the performance where it was all going to fail in a spectacular heap of broken melodies and loose plot ends. Every night they seemed to reach greater heights. It made Whose Line is it Anyway? look like a playground game.

I wanted to do what they did. I wanted to be them.

But this was 2001 and returning to London, inspired and evangelical about this new art form, I found no-one willing or able to help me build an improvisational nirvana in the heart of our nation’s capital. Perhaps they were there, the fledgling UK Impro community, but there was no way for us to find each other. The internet was a baby too, it lacked sophistication. It was basically just the US Military complex and Hamster Dance (link: http://www.webhamster.com/).

Ten years later, I feel part of a supportive community of UK improvisors of immense talent and ambition. I’ve spent years perfecting my Yes ands... & Who, What, Wheres?, my edits, walk ons & follow mes. I’ve seen shows of breath-taking skill and courage, amazing evenings full of laughter and daring. But for me, still, there’s nothing like Baby Wants Candy. There are acts who approach their musical dexterity and others who are arguably as funny, still others who are able to marshal character and plot with the same aplomb. But all together at the same time? While giving you sweets? No, siree, Bob.

There isn’t another act like them. The catalyst for my whole mad, brilliant impro odyssey. They are an institution and an inspiration and every improvisor should see them at least once.

So I guess it’s lucky, on reflection, that they happen to be in town for 5 shows."

- Chris Mead

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