By George Dixon
It’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival time and with so many shows in town, Innes Lloyds Time Lord should be on your “to see” list.
Most Sci-Fi fans would automatically associate the phrase “Time Lord” with the TV series Dr Who. which is about to celebrate its 60th Anniversary.
Interestingly “Innes Lloyd” is the combination of David Innes and Rob Lloyd, who are the creative geniuses behind this and other improvised productions. Back in time, In the United Kingdom, a well-known Welsh television producer by the name of Innes Lloyd, who, amongst other things, produced a number of the BBC’s Dr Who series. Lloyd died in 1991.
One of the interesting aspects of “Innes Lloyds Time Lord” is the complete performance is totally unscripted. Each performance is improvised by the very talented cast consisting of David Innes, Rob Lloyd, Vicki Kyriakakis, Jessica Lu, Tim Roach, Jaklene Vukasinovic and Chloe Towan.
This means that each performance is totally unique and the audience on the night selects the storyline.
(The audience provides suggestions, out of which three outlines are worked out, and then the audience votes for that night’s winner).
The audience also selects who will be the key characters and which prop will become “the sonic screwdriver” or as, in my case, the big black marker. This process happens very quickly. All other props are imaginary, which is perfect for staging on a large or small platform.
The audience’s initial participation provides a level of ownership and interest to witness the development and conclusion.
The marriage of cast, content guidelines and the audience are maintained by an outline coordinator whose role is to bring the cast back to the plot line, such is the fun of improvising and performance time constraints.
It’s clear to see that the cast is having as much fun as the audience, which certainly adds to the overall atmosphere.
I enjoyed the production; its wit and the local referencing was totally relatable to the situations and story development.
The performance is satisfying, with some typical “Who” referencing that brings about familiarity.
The balance is very clever, so if you are not a huge fan of Dr Who you will still understand what it’s all about.
