YRadio

Matt Selmon and Ian Gordon have been doing improv for a while now. So the mere idea that they don't know surely has to be called into question. Y radio was fortunate enough to be allowed to answer that question by being invited to their last warm up show before they hit into Edinburgh fringe between the 4th and 21st of August.

Hopefully the room would be less warm in the Edinburgh fringe than the black horse one that we occupied. It was unnecessarily warm; I have no idea why it was hot but to Matt and Ian's credit the quant room was filled to capacity with people eager to see a bit of improv so maybe it was the amount of body heat generated that made the room hot...but bareable.

All that was out of their hands and luckily the support act Johnny Ronson had a ukulele in his hand and began his set of ukulele songs to warm up in a purely psychological sense the audience before matt and Ian arrived to show if they really know. I was really looking forward to the rest of the night.

Johnny started with his ukulele set and the first noticeable thing about him is how relaxed he looks on stage. You instantly listen to him like you're talking to him personally and this is before he even starts to play. The thing I liked about him is that being a musician he talked, but didn't talk too much, which more and more gigs that I go to musician talk more than play. Johnny introduced his songs in a funny way and his songs were very cleverly put together. I liked the fact that he mixed the version of the songs with covers and his own material, such as his very funny parody of Billy Braggs sexuality to his brilliant explanation of sky sports news. The things I enjoyed most about his set was his use of going back to previous jokes such as doing two songs about two different sky sports news presenters and also his ability to recover from some semi mistakes he made. For example he did the same verse twice in his second sky sports news song and his fun interaction with the audience showed everyone he was good at what he was doing. That's the benefit of being at an improv show in that the mistakes can end up adding to the show, and that certainly did to Johnny's set in this instance. The audiences chants of we want more when he finished conveyed that it was a very good set , he was like ross noble with a ukulele, so it was exactly up my street! So watch this space (quite literally as I hope to get him on the show soon)

After a 10 minute break matt and Ian arrived to finally answer the question do they really not know? One of things you notice with Matt and Ian is that they clearly enjoy performing with each other, which stems from them being members of the on the spot improve group thats been around since 2006. Matt plays the straight man, letting Ian be the more manic side of the double act who regularly talked to the audience in between games and often made Matt laugh in disbelief even before the game started. They started with an improvised scene based from members of the audience that showed what they were capable of and the audience from the very first scene were laughing after each line. The prop that they use with added effect is the wheel of improv (they rejected my name for it :wheel of misfortune) where they spin a wheel to randomly pick a game that was on the wheel. Both Matt and Ian made my friend Robbie and I laugh as their set at the variety gig Pink Lane a few weeks the wheel spun for a few minutes and required 'slowing down' for this particular set. It became a great way for the audience to participate by cheering the wheel on as well as giving the performers a chance to try something different. A game I found interesting was a game called radio scene where they performed a scene where the audience were asked to close their eyes like they were listening to the radio. It was something I've never been a part of and the fact the audience was willing to try it shows the reason why I in particular love going to see improv.

The favourite games of mine that Matt and Ian performed was alphabet , party quirks, number of words and change. In alphabet the scene they played was a person going to get a colinic irrigation only to find he knows the doctor. The game involves do a sentence at a time going up the alphabet , for example they started with G So Matt then began the next line with H. What I loved about the scene is that the game improved the scene and the little twists that both performers subtly had the audience in the palm of their hands in making them laugh. Party quirks was where Ian had to guess what three characters Matt was : a string toy man, trombone for knees man and the headless horseman was very enjoyable and everyone was cheering Ian on to get them right, the trombone for knees being very hard to guess! My most enjoyable game they played was when they played change, in that when the beep sounded they had to change what they last said to something else. It was brilliantly clever and showed that they knew what they were doing, as the scene they did was divorce lawyer and client that ended up being that they were married to each other. It was one of them scenes where it ended at the right time and was hilarious from start to finish.

All in all, im very weird when I go to gigs, cos Im one of them people that when I get there Im no longer as looking forward to it as i was on the way there. However, when the gig started it was a really fun evening, the support act was great and the majority of the games they played was entertaining with some scenes very hilarious indeed. There were some games that didn't quite work, such as the alternating scenes that seem to lose where they were heading halfway through. But thats what improv is all about, there is risk and sometimes it doesn't work, but when it does it does lead to some incredibly brilliantly funny scenes. And matt and Ian are very good at what they do , so if you're heading to Edinburgh fringe, go and see them, if this was the warm up then the shows in Edinburgh will be a real treat. It was a thoroughly enjoyable night and YRadio really enjoyed the night out.

Matt and Ian's show Matt and Ian don't know are performing at the Edinburgh festival fringe between the 4-21st august at city 1 grassmarket between 10.25 to 11.25 pm, £9.00 (£7.00 conc) While you wait Matt and Ian are guest on the steven hesse show episode 4 on YRadio, check them out!

Overall YRadio Score

71%