Blog: Quiz Machine

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Last night I took a trip back in time, and also down the road, to see 'Henry Cage: Quiz Machine' at 2 Northdown, just round the corner from my work. This was the new show from Mr Harry Carr AKA Harry from the MA, and there was a whole bunch of fellow ALUMNI in attendance. It was dead good!

The pre-show featured Ms E Morgan for our traditional periodical chat about How It's All Going - for Emma it appears to be going QUITE EXCITINGLY with things in ACTUAL DEVELOPMENT - and towards the end Ms M Malm, before we went round the corner to meet up with Ms M Velevitch and Ms L Hayford for the show itself. It was LOVELY seeing everybody again, and seems VERY hard to believe that we finished the MA four years ago. That can't be right can it? I'm prepared to believe we might have STARTED it four years ago, but that seems like AGES since it was all over. I always think that one of (if not THE) best things about that course was the other people who were on it - hanging around in the pub with them on Wednesday nights was certainly my favourite part of the teaching anyway - and it was fab to lurk around with them in a Theatrical Space again.

The show itself was dead good too. I've seen a couple of Harry's shows before and he has always been a WHIZ at doing Audience Participation without making anyone feel BAD about it. He got people up on stage and, while staying in character and being funny, made them feel part of the show without forcing them to do things they didn't like. It was also deceptively CUNNING - it was set up like a pub quiz, which allowed for JOKES all the way through (PROPER jokes too) but then a SUB-PLOT to develop which built even more jokes into it. The best bits, according to me, were a) the way he immediately got audience members to pretend to be team leaders and shout out their scores at the end of each round b) the catchphrase "I'll allow it" and c) ending with getting everyone to stand up and sing a Christmas Carol. This latter felt bizarre at the time, but it was a lovely way to get the whole audience united, and also standing up ready to applaud when he left the stage!

It was, all in all, a fab night - a reminder of fun times in the past and a sign that those kind of times can carry on!

posted 17/10/2018 by MJ Hibbett

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