Mixed Omens
14 June 2023
Drayton Arms Theatre
2.0 out of 5.0 stars
Improv shows are always a mixed bag, and Mixed Omens is a great example for this.
The small troupe of improv artists starts with the aim of creating a fully improvised story in the style and voice of Neil Gaiman. The audience gets to pick one item, signifying the main protagonist of the show, and pick a situation from which the story is spun.
While it is definitely acted and guided in the subliminal, spooky and unsettling style of Gaiman, there is no story skeleton to cling to, so it quickly dissolves into loosely connected scenes that don’t seem to quite fit together.
There’s heart in this show, but what I have seen time and again in improv stories, if there is no basic formula to build a story around, it just feels unfinished and unsatisfactory. Having a few guidelines and formulas to work around would really benefit Mixed Omens to create a more cohesive show with a more polished feel to it.
Still, it was entertaining and well acted, with spooky moments and quite a few laughs throughout. An enjoyable little show that could be much better with just a few tweaks to how the evening is run.