Aaaand Now For Something Completely Improvised, Pleasance That @ Pleasance Courtyard, 31 July to 26 August, £6 (£5 concessions) to £8 (£7 concessions)
With two severely visually impaired members (one of whom lost his sight during the 2009 Edinburgh Festival), family-friendly improv quartet Racing Minds return for a fourth year with their full-length ripping yarn that is entirely different every day of the Fringe, Aaaand Now For Something Completely Improvised.
This is Racing Minds’ first show at Pleasance, having been one of the biggest draws at the Free Festival for the past three years. Familiar faces would fill the room each day, and so to encourage the repeat custom that improv allows, tickets for the show are among the cheapest at Pleasance, costing no more than £8 on weekends, while concessions are £5 on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Framed as the hazy fireside remembrances of a doddery grandfather, and suitable for all ages, their tales of adventure rely on a hastily assembled foundation of audience suggestions – as wild or imaginative as the fringe-goers fancy – before they weave an array of memorable characters and a plethora of rib-tickling situations. Welcomed to the intimate surroundings of the Pleasance Courtyard’s new venue, Pleasance That, by an elderly butler with a silver tray full of sweets, expect edge-of-the-seat suspense, shock plot twists and satisfying finales (not to mention jokes galore); all while a talented pianist provides similarly spontaneous instrumentation!
As well as appearing at the Pleasance, Racing Minds will be recording their iTunes’ Top 50 improvised radio play, ‘The Wireless Podcast’ every day at 7.30pm in The Three Sisters, Cowgate.