VAULT Festival 2017: Notflix by Waiting For The Call

Coming in fresh from a sellout run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, musical improv team Waiting For The Call presents Notflix, a nightly performance where the team reimagines your favourite film as a completely original musical!

Notflix starts off with picking a film at random, with choices drawn from a bucket of slips audience members filled out before the show. This was their second night performing at the Vaults Fringe Festival, and apparently, they had a tough one on opening night: Schindler’s List. Luckily for them, this time around, we had a much more light-hearted prompt – romcom Bridget Jones’ Baby. Don’t expect to see a staged version of the film though; all they work with is a general plot outline, and it sort of explodes into a beautiful chaotic revue thereafter. To sum up the plot of Bridget Jones’ Baby – middle aged British lady in London gets knocked up by either Colin Firth or Patrick Dempsey, father remains a mystery till the baby is actually born.

The team took considerable liberties with the plot, introducing new characters such as Patrick Dempsey’s P.A. (Ailis Duff) and a lonely gynaecologist (Clare Buckingham, who came up with some of the best one liners), and having Colin Firth proposing to Bridget in the middle of a Tesco’s, all accompanied by completely original songs. Led by Ailis Duff as McDreamy’s P.A., a combination of witty, relatable lyrics and sick beats made the P.A. Rap (unofficial name) a highlight of the night, and the audience responded with whoops, cheers and raucous applause. Playing Bridget was Gemma-Marie Everest and Colin Firth by Holly Mallett, both of whom displayed some of the funniest facial expressions throughout the performance, while Aisling Groves-McKeown finished off the trinity as a hapless, womanizing version of Patrick Dempsey with a convincing enough American accent. All of this adds up to an hour of great, high energy fun, and with absolutely no idea what the cast would’ve come up with next, the audience was wild with anticipation with how the team would next completely ruin (or improve) your view of Bridget Jones’ Baby.

Unfortunately for you, if you do come down, you definitely won’t be seeing another rendition of Bridget Jones’ Baby. But what you will see, regardless of the film picked, is a team of extremely talented women at their creative best onstage, birthing (literally, at our night) songs from the depths of their imagination that are not only catchy, but also laugh out loud funny. If you want evidence that women can do comedy, this is living proof, and it’s something you’ll want to keep on replay and definitely on the watch again list, because hell, an hour really does whizz right by when you’re having as much fun as you will here!

Notflix plays at The Network Theatre, near Waterloo Station (London) till 29 January. Tickets available here. You can keep up with Waiting For The Call on their website and Twitter @WFTCimprov