Website designed by Steve Roe © Music Box 2011. Music Box produced in association with Hoopla Improv, Drama and Comedy Classes.

Music Box are produced in association with Hoopla Improv Comedy Classes and London Improv.co.uk. Website designed by Steve Roe © Music Box 2011

Fringe Guru

 

 

 

 

“This one's brilliant.  In a genre that's grown so popular it sports its own clichés, Music Box stand out for their ambition, their variety, their creativity... and the fact they actually can sing.

 

To me, mind you, all improvised musicals are feats beyond comprehension; how can you possibly pluck a tune, lyrics, and coherent plot all from thin air?  Much depends on source material, shouted out by the audience at the start, and on the night I visited they were lucky - a love story set in a Swedish aquarium just couldn't fail to be funny.  But my goodness, they made the most of their good fortune, creating a storyline which actually meant something and characters who made me care.

 

And I've never seen musical improv tackle such a range of styles.  All the stage-musical genres were there, from the wistful slow ballad through to a portentous bone-chiller about the psychology of (ahem) a fish.  The octopus hip-hop left me helpless with laughter, and the obligatory showstopping number wove a single strand from all the threads, revealing that the choruses from earlier songs had been planned to mesh together all along.

 

This is the purest style of improv - with no host and no off-stage conferring - so it's unreasonable to expect perfection.  Instead, Music Box offer something even more rewarding: a precious sense of shared adventure, as the seemingly impossible takes shape before our eyes.”

 

Improv America

 

“I was really impressed by the show. The characters were formed quickly and sustained throughout and were very likeable too. The songs were well sung and very funny and the humour never relied on smut or lowest common denominator jokes which is sometimes the danger with improvised songs. All the players were great and the lead in this particular musical managed to be funny, sweet, witty and truthful all at once. It would have been easy to make the protagonist in this instance a grotesque character but Bream avoided this and produced a very likeable heroine. ”

 

Keith Clancy, Earl’s Court Festival

 

“Music Box, check this out for an idea, the audience shouts out three unrelated words and Music Box gives you a genuine musical improvised from start to finish. What one does not realise whilst reading that last sentence is that, these improvised musicals are actually a real musical with a narrative, genuinely good songs, sometimes moving often very funny songs with tunes and rhymes and all that stuff that people work on for years writing a musical. What amazed me was it was all there, the opening song, the love number, the big finish. If you like a good sing-song, you'll love this. Music Box? Tick! These people are actually talented. All in all this was a lovely, funny and slick night of improvised musical comedy by a talented group.”

 

The Londonist

 

“The group accomplished the show with panache, wit and an impressive degree of professionalism.”

 

Tessa Bickers, Singer/Songwriter

"that was f*cking incredible... I have no idea how you guys did that but it felt like magic... I'd pay good money to see that on the west end or something. It was better than avenue Q."

 

Rebecca Claydon, Honey Events

 

“Music Box - dynamic, original and captivating. I haven't laughed so much or felt so much apart of a performance as I did with Becca and her team. Would recommend their night to anyone who wants to have a good time!”

 

ESPN Producer

"So funny I spat my wine across five rows of people and right up onto the stage. I would recommend this to everyone (the show not the wine spitting)."

 

Audience quotes from The Miller

 

“It’s like Glee on crack.”

 

“We thoroughly enjoyed last evening's show and were genuinely very impressed with the standard - they deserve to be on the telly!”
 

“Nothing like a good laugh in the dark winter evenings!”

 

“Dynamite stuff.”

 

 

Reviews