[2015106] The Ronin
Lliam Amor @ Grace Emily Hotel
9:00pm, Tue 3 Mar 2015
In my usual bumble-around-the-Fringe semi-planned chaos, I didn’t realise that The Ronin was part of the Adelaide Improv Festival – a series of over thirty shows spread over eleven days in the middle of the Fringe. But most of the other punters here most certainly did know that, because they appeared to be improv regulars… they were well settled into the Grace Emily, and my arrival (and selection of empty seat) raised a curious eyebrow or two.
I’d previously encountered Lliam Amor (alongside Dave Bloustien) in 2011, but it’s always interesting to see how performers react in an improv situation; Amor kicked off proceedings with a few rounds of “Show Us Your Ditties,” where snippets of random tunes are used to inspire short pieces. This struck me as a pretty cool – though high-pressured way – to go about improv scene selection; Amor’s resultant pieces were entertaining enough, though they often hit a brick wall once the initial inspiration dried up.
The more traditional improv route of garnering fragments from the audience sprang a surprise… the chap in the audience (another improvver, naturally) had an uncannily familiar background: an engineer with computer science background (and currently working with 3D models), he offered up “tennis” and “monocle” as inspiration.
Lliam Amor is fine as an improv artist… but let’s be honest, here: I’m not a massive fan of the improv form. I’d much rather see something well-scripted, thankyouverymuch. But it was super interesting to see how much Amor relied on contrived (and often hilariously over-cooked) accents and ridiculous character names to set the scene; if nothing else, that was a great improv lesson for me.
As for the Adelaide Improv Festival… who knew?
(106) The Ronin: Clever improv eye-opener for me. Interesting to see reliance on accents and names. #ff2015 #ADLfringe
— Pete Muller (@festivalfreakAU) March 3, 2015