Edinburgh Fringe Review: CSI: Crime Scene Improvisation, Underbelly, Bristo Square

Edinburgh Fringe Review: CSI: Crime Scene Improvisation, Underbelly, Bristo Square

If you are familiar with the improvised hit Showstopper! The Improvised Musical you'll get the idea of CSI: Crime Scene Improvisation almost before the intro music (did I spot the theme from The Sweeney?) has finished. A group of talented ad libbers create a one hour comic crime drama before your very eyes based on your suggestions. It's different every day but judging by the one I saw it should be pretty good fun at any time.

The audience – collectively named Jolene – suggested the name of the murder victim, the location and the weapon. It was Shakira killed by a glass window in a water slide park – take that, Cluedo – which meant that the ensemble, six of them, though not quite the ones on the poster, had to think swiftly on their feet to explain why there would even be glass windows on a cascading water slide in the first place. But then that's the essence of impro – go with the flow.

There are plenty of off-the-cuff gags but with impro part of the fun, apart from having a hand in the set-up, is seeing performers mess up or corpse as much as do things perfectly. The troupe was clearly having a good time onstage, maybe too good a time as they sometimes failed to move the plot along or see a quickfire quip when it was staring them in the face. Surely during a crime investigation into the killing of someone called Shakira the "hips don't lie" line should have cropped up. Apologies if I missed it. I may have been too busy trying to work out what exactly was going on.

It's enough of a challenge to come up with a credible self-contained plot so quickly – or even a silly plot like this – and CSI does it very well. The gimmick is that nobody knows whodunnit until right at the end as the case is constantly being made up on the spot. Belated evidence, however, pretty clearly pointed to a disgruntled ex-lover with a grudge on this occasion, but who knows how it might turn out next time. There's only one option, you'll have to buy a ticket to find out.

CSI: Crime Scene Improvisation, until August 28. Buy tickets here.

three stars

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