ED2015 4/5 Reviews ED2015 Comedy Reviews

The MMORPG Show (Electric Talent)

By Bruce Blacklaw | Published on Friday 26 August 2016

The title stands for Massively Multiplayer Onstage Roleplaying Game. Still reading? Righto. The excellent host and Dungeon Master Paul Flannery warms up the sort of crowd who can be warmed up by stand-up material about elves and hobbits. He then invites three volunteers from the audience to take the part of player characters in an improvisational adventure, driven in part by audience suggestions appended to a wafer thin plot. The story then resolves, in time-honoured fashion, according to the roll of an outsized 20-sided dice. It’s ‘Dungeons and Dragons’-themed improv, peppered with in-jokes and revelling in its gleeful, geekish absurdity. Some entry-level knowledge would help in understanding much out of it but, thanks to Flannery’s deft, sharp, running of the game show, it works.

Gilded Balloon at the Counting House, until 28 Aug.
tw rating 4/5 | [Bruce Blacklaw]