Who on earth are the Karaoke Theatre Company and why does Alan Ayckbourn seem so keen to give them his endorsement? From all available evidence, this is no more than a second-rate improvisational troupe, specialising in vulgar farce, hackneyed horror stories and dated period drama, who have found that there’s money to be saved if you dispense with a writer and expect the audience to make its own entertainment. There can be no surer guarantee that, when a performer announces that participation is optional, anyone unlucky enough to have booked for the front rows is in for an embarrassing couple of hours.
A close reading of the company’s history in the programme, however, reveals a distinct whiff of rat. One tries to recall if there ever was a fringe outfit known as Frenzied Flywheel, whom Ayckbourn claims to have encountered at the Corkscrew theatre in Worthing. Did one member of the company really gain his Equity card as a cruise-ship magician, whose speciality was “filling the stage with fish”? Ultimately, it’s the production credits that give the game away. Thanks are apparently due to Crabbes, the Bucket Makers of Pendon, the fictional home counties town where many of Ayckbourn’s comedies are set; as well as to Ristorante Calvinu, the Italian eatery favoured for Ayckbourn family reunions, and Ayres and Graces, the corrupt construction firm eviscerated in A Small Family Business. Such a complex skein of self reference even raises hope that we might finally catch a glimpse of Dick and Lottie Potter, the offstage couple often referred to in Ayckbourn’s plays, but who never actually appear.
As with all great spoofs, Ayckbourn’s premise is so horribly plausible you hesitate to declare whether it’s supposed to be a joke or not. Whatever the case, it is certainly very funny and clear evidence that the author has produced it with no higher purpose in mind than to enjoy himself.
Throughout his career, Ayckbourn has taken a geekish pleasure in compiling his own sound effects. Here he goes a step further by getting the audience to do it for him. Daft as it sounds, it is killingly funny to watch a mimed game of tennis for which the spectators are required to make an appropriate noise whenever the invisible ball makes contact with the racquet.
You could gripe that some of the scenarios are actually beyond parody, such as a bedroom farce in which a randy plumber invites a pert housewife to grease his stopcock; or a Downton-esque period piece that you actually have to sit through twice, after an audience member has been conscripted to read from cue cards. This becomes so reminiscent of the format of the Generation Game it’s something of a relief that the volunteer isn’t then sat behind a conveyor belt and required to memorise items including a canteen of cutlery and a cuddly toy. But overall, as Brucie might say, good game, good game.
• At Stephen Joseph theatre, Scarborough, in rep until 7 October. Box office: 01723 370 541.
