"The biggest success of the iSpy is its effortless ability to transport us into a thematically sustained world inhabited by secret agents"Colin Rothwell

The scenario that the members of iSpy improvised on the opening night was the mysterious case of a stolen bucket of KFC chicken. What will YOU get on the night you go see iSpy, I wonder?

The biggest success of the iSpy is its effortless ability to transport us into a thematically sustained world inhabited by secret agents. The atmosphere of the show is so engrossing that even when the characters act in ridiculous and incompetent ways, the only thing that gets broken is not our belief in this world of suspense and treachery which our collective imagination conjures up on the Corpus stage, but the silence of the room as we burst into wild laughter.

“The atmosphere of the show is so engrossing”

The warm beams which saturate the stage with daylight brightness for a big part of the show are substituted, from time to time, by a harsh interrogative spotlight, employed to isolate one or the other spy from the rest of their agency crew in an attempt to catch the traitor with metaphorical blood on their hands – or, in our scenario, the grease of the stolen KFC chicken on their face.

The dramatic sounds of the stage piano, which accompanied the characters’ cryptic comments and hilarious one-liners added both to the suspense and the comedic effect of the piece. The deliberate simplicity of the black curtain covering the stage walls behind the actors’ welcomed the freedom of both their and our imagination, allowing us to paint any setting we wished for the characters to engage with. And of course, the costumes – the simultaneous formality and snazziness of the black-and-white outfits contributed not just to the authenticity but also to the chic style of the show.

Now let’s talk about the most important thing we all expect from an improv show – the comedy. First off, I want to declare that I take my metaphorical hat off to all those who can improvise their way into making a large group of people roar with laughter – and I think you should too, especially to The Cambridge Impronauts.

The sheer ingenuity of the hilarious story that the cast tailored on the spot helped win me over, and earns the show serious recommendation. However, it wasn’t without a few slip-ups that could have been (and still can be!) avoided. With improv, the jokes are always hit-and-miss and, while with some incredible talents, such as Emil Evans, it is always, without exception, hit, hit, hit until we start gasping for air after a train of uproarious lines, some of the interactions between actors were quite unfruitful and kept us in an awkward silent spell – luckily, these were few and each lasted no longer than a minute.

“Without hesitation, Hagan tied the messy unpredictable story we were all guilty of creating and laughing at into one unified coherent whole”

Improv is a collective idea-generator, where audience members and actors work together to launch a fantasy world created from scratch into existence. It would be a lie to say that the audience didn’t participate in most of the action on stage – we did and we very much enjoyed it – however, it would also be untruthful to omit that, with a cast this talented and with such imaginative potential, we were left wanting more of the dialogue between us and them.

Perhaps, we could have helped the actors when they got stuck, as, at a certain point, it felt like their seemingly infinite imagination has started to run dry – the bizarre plot points that should have led to even more bizarre plot points instead led to limiting repetition. Luckily, the show was split into several different parts with varying levels of audience involvement – a clever tactic on the part of Ben Spiro, the director – which successfully dispelled the seemingly unavoidable danger of monotony.

Elise Hagan in particular also deserves a mention. Without hesitation, Hagan tied the messy unpredictable story we were all guilty of creating and laughing at into one unified coherent whole, leaving us with a pleasant sense of closure, which is a brilliant conclusion to the story that had initially (and hilariously) defied sense-making altogether