Hard Hearted improv for Lyric spring

First Published 6 May 2008, Last Updated 6 May 2008

Audiences for Hard Hearted Hannah And Other Stories, which runs at the Lyric Hammersmith from 15 May-7 June, will take a step into the unknown each night.

Every performance of Cartoon De Salvo’s show will be completely different as each is improvised and dependent on audience choices.

Billed as “part-gig, part-juke box, part theatre”, Hard Hearted Hannah And Other Stories offers audiences a choice of songs from a selected playlist inspired by the jug band music of the American South. Based on the choices, the Cartoon De Salvo team of Neil Haigh, Brian Logan and Alex Murdoch improvise a story using only the tunes and their imagination.

Not to be confused with the comedy skits of shows such as Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Hard Hearted Hannah is an improvised full length adventure. On tour the process has already seen the creation of plays entitled The Ghost In The Tower, The Camel’s Hump and Alien Robots Take Over The World.

Hard Hearted Hannah and Other Stories marks 10 years of Cartoon De Salvo creating pieces aimed at pushing the boundaries of the live theatre experience. Among its previous productions, The Sunflower Pot saw the company growing its own stage for the allotment-set epic, while Meat And Two Veg involved transforming a washing line in to wartime Britain.

MA

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