The incredible ‘Showstopper! The Improvised Musical’ makes a return to The Grand at the Pleasance Courtyard for the month of August. Spontaneous musical comedy at its finest, the show comes direct from a West End run and nationwide tour. This is the first ever long-form improv show to have a full West End run and to be nominated and win an Olivier Award! Completely improvised and genuinely entirely different every night this is THE must see show of the fringe!
For those that haven’t yet experienced the live phenomenon that is ‘Showstopper! The Improvised Musical’, it is a fully-realized musical created live on the spot from audience suggestions. The cast transform from suggestions of setting, genre and style with ingenious storylines and hilarious characters. The audience also name that night’s show, which is added to The Showstoppers’ archive. From Pink Floyd to Stephen Sondheim, via a school, Ancient Egypt or a mattress shop – if the audience can suggest it, The Showstoppers will perform it. It’s hugely funny to watch.
The group are long running, well known and renowned for their improvisation work. Most cast members have also received acclaim in their own right. The Showstoppers have been working on the show since 2008, figuring out how to improvise in increasingly esoteric styles, musical, dance, straight theatre, and film genres to name but a few.
The show has been at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for the past 12 years and now has a reputation as a ‘Must See’ Edinburgh Fringe show. It had a 12-week run at London’s Other Palace in early 2019 and continues to play monthly at the Lyric Theatre in London’s West End. In the Autumn of 2015, it became the first longform improv show to have a full run in the West End at the Apollo Theatre.
