Wagon wheels. A bubble bath. Lichtenstein. A kitten orphanage. These are but some of the things that appear in Spilt Milk, this week’s ADC late show. I would say they make more sense in context, but there isn’t much context to speak of. If you yearn for a tightly structured, intricately plotted play filled with provocative satire, this may not satisfy you. If you enjoy your comedy fast, loose, with a variety of accents and a side order of fake fish, this amusingly scatter-brained show will certainly tickle your fancy.

Here is the set-up, brought up at the beginning like a blank canvas against which the jokes can be relentlessly thrown: Macy Johnson is a British spy who needs to solve a milk crisis that seems to emanate from the ‘fictional’ nation of Lichtenstein. The plot then follows a series of James Bond style beats, but with as much silliness as can fit onto two costume racks. Instead of MI6, we have ‘SIS’; instead of M, we have ‘Mam’; instead of Q, we have ‘Y’; instead of Blofeld, we have a Lichtensteiner petting a plastic haddock.

The writers, Haydn Jenkins (who also directs) and Colin Rothwell, both have experience doing improvised comedy, and it shows: Spilt Milk has many hallmarks of an improv show – a loose premise around a familiar genre, a small number of performers playing a variety of characters, a frenetic pace, and a throw in every joke approach.

Real credit must go to the three fantastic performers, who despite the technical difficulties at the very beginning of the show, the sheer number of characters played and the amount of time spent onstage, held the show together and kept high energy throughout. Part of the joy for the audience is seeing just how many costumes and accents they can effortlessly fit into. Kate Marston plays the needed constant of the show in Macy, and captures... that classic... secret agent intonation... with appropriate suave, if you know what I’m talking about.... Louisa Keight excelled as, among other things, the spy boss, a car’s GPS system and a zebra, while Mark Bittlestone was always on hand like a caffeine shot to the system to throw a little chaos into proceedings. He was given an especially rich collection of characters (and accents), and threw himself into each one (sometimes literally) with aplomb.  

With a show like this, its strength tends to lie in the quality of the individual jokes and characters – the sum is roughly equal to its parts. As you might expect, some are better than others. I can remember one joke being met with total silence, while another not long afterwards being given a spontaneous round of applause. Quite a few rely on silly foreign names and voices; some stronger moments involved word-play, call-backs and complete non-sequiturs. There is certainly space in the running time to trim some of the lesser quips to give the stronger ones a bit of breathing space and add momentum. There is also perhaps room for some improvised mayhem among the small cast – I rather hope they are encouraged to run riot now that they’ve demonstrated they can handle the material. I expect that in a show like this, the more fun this cast of three has, the more fun the audience will have too.

This is a show I can only see improving on the next two nights of its run. If you fancy an evening of hi-jinks and absurdity, it’ll be well worth your while to check out this late show – and who knows, there might be a Wagon Wheel or two in it for you.