There are certain skills in which North Americans are simply pre-eminent: gangster movies, ticker-tape parades and chewing gum. To this list must surely be added the gift of improvisational comedy.
With no slight intended towards our own Comedy Store players, thinking on one's feet and making it look fun just seems to come naturally if you're from New York, LA or - in the case of the duo who have been appearing at the Soho Poly Theatre - Chicago.
Seth Meyers looks like an all-American boy and Jill Benjamin looks like a ditzy American suburban chick. Together they are able to create feasible cameos from the thinnest of audience suggestions, which are worked into skeletal plot lines and then - to greater and greater effect - returned to during the evening. The only problem they face is that they are up against that traditional British reserve which prohibits shouting out outlandish comments. Still, they were offered gravel but did their damnedest to turn it into crazy paving.
In one sketch, they play ex-lovers who meet unexpectedly and have to rustle up an instant "date" (from the audience) to show off to each other. Benjamin's date claimed to be unemployed when she asked him what glamorous profession he enjoyed. "Uh! That's right," she said, hardly missing a beat. "Leaves us more time for, you know, the bedroom."
Some say improvisers are too lazy to write their own stuff, but what you get every night with Benjamin and Meyers is a brilliant new show, and believe me, they work a lot harder than us.
Until tonight. Starts at 10pm. Box office: 020 7478
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