8410/21329 = 0.39429884195227155
What an extraordinary venue first of all. The lobby is a great space for socialising and getting out of Walhamstow and the theatre space is retro (it used to be a cinema) and huge (I'd guess it's about 1000 seats). Walhamstow is pretty damn lucky to have this and I hope they will use it well.
There were plenty of people in this afternoon to see a very entertaining and childish improvised musical. Ernie was, as usual, not keen to go, but we knew this would be right up his street and when the performers came out to say hello to the crowd before the show had even begun, he was jumping on his seat trying to get their attention. When they asked for suggestions he was even keener to get involved, shouting out "toilet" before he'd even been asked. They didn't hear him.
I hoped he would get a chance to join in, though with maybe 500 kids in there it was far from certain. The Showstoppers team dealt brilliantly with the suggestions they were getting. It's a tricky thing to juggle as kids will either be rude or use characters from copyrighted movies or be bamboozled and will often just repeat something that someone else has said. So whilst an early suggestion was lyrical "a rabbit picking its way through a forest", others then suggested rabbity things. The actors were not phased and managed to largely seamlessly take it all on board.
Last year at Comedy for Kids, a similarly reluctant Ernie had been dragged to the show and then got very heavily involved in the proceedings.
Back then he had made everyone laugh by shouting "Chicken Nuggets" as his catchphrase. Maybe he got this from somewhere else or maybe in the last year the trend has spread because one of the other kids did a great comic twist as others suggested animals that you might find in a wood. Others picked things like a grizzly bear but the last one went for "a chicken nugget". This led to the brilliant improviser Ruth Bratt perfectly encapsulating a chicken nugget and coming up with a chicken nugget song.
Anna and Elsa became characters in the play thanks to some unimaginative children. They wanted to know what Elsa was wearing and this time the mic was near to Ernie who miraculously was picked and had his answer ready to go. "A toilet" he shouted with glee. He got a good laugh of course but the fact his answer was now a clothing item rather than a place or character made the suggestion a lot funnier and led to a sticky situation for the actors as eventually other characters wanted to use the toilet and when given the option of whether to save the toilet wearing character from being pooed on, of course the crowd wanted the worst possible outcome.
I was proud that my son had caused this chaos. And that he continued his unbroken streak of making an audience laugh. From his heckle during Matilda, where the teacher takes up the reprise "When I Grow Up" and he shouted indignantly, "You're already grown up", to suggesting a toilet as a dress for Elsa, he has accidentally or not, funny bones.
His verdict on the show that he'd had the time of his life at was "medium". I suspect he didn't want to lose face after being so insistent that he didn't want to attend.
My verdict was that the Showstoppers were extraordinary, much more entertaining than a panto (and mercifully not quite an hour long). It's worth risking a trip to Walthamstow for.
