I’ve heard many good things online about Kiell Smith Bynoe’s delightfully titled improv show, Kool Story Bro, but I didn’t really know the premise of it. It turns out to be simple but effective - the cast ask the audience for stories from their lives, and then decide to completely throw those actual stories out the window and improvise very loosely based on the details and the feel of it all. Tonight we were treated to special guest interrogator Chloe Petts, and amongst the cast was Laura Ricote, so that’s good fun.
I… yes, fine, ok, I fall into the very large group of stand up comedians who look down on improv. George loves it though, and this was something of a sop to him. I did think it would be fun enough, and I trust someone like Kiell Smith Bynoe to do it better than a random university improv troupe. And, to be fair to them, it was generally pretty good! Based on someone’s best day of their life, worst day of their life, and greatest nemesis, we got three “stories” out of it, each of them quite nicely broken down into almost sketch-like scenes, a fractal tapestry as opposed to a straight-laced narrative. Some good laughs, some less good laughs, but I don’t particularly recall a death.
The problem with the format, though, is that it requires spending far too long indulging audience members who simply should not be indulged. In order to gather enough detail for it to be worth it, we all have to sit through some very tedious people telling us very tedious things, with no real care for how not charming we find them. It’s not worth it.
There’s an element of overegging trying to tie three distinct narratives together at the end, which I understand the impulse towards, but it shows up the weaknesses inherent in the form - you can’t plan things. Comedians often get given grief for their hours having the illusion of structure, but at least they’ve thought about it. What would have been sufficient here is the thing comedians actually get accused of - just a little reference to a previous story at the end, as KSB himself did, would have been good. But by the others trying too hard, it collapses in on itself in the final moments.
At the end of the day, I can’t help but instinctively grade improv on a curve. It’s funny… for something they’ve just made up. Alasdair was doing the tech for an improv group during his run at the Fringe, and told me that one night the improv was actually quite good. My reaction to that was that the sensible thing to do is to remember what they did that night, then, knowing it was funny, do it again, having maybe tweaked it. That’s what audiences deserve.