At the Movies: Mafia? Western? Sci-fi? Blueprints for Devised Comedy

Comedy has often been a much-maligned genre, but in the last few years it has enjoyed a renaissance, largely through the work of Mischief Theatre and via the wizardry of Splendid Theatre Company. And now we have a trio beginning with J (Josh, James and John), collectively known as the Sleeping Trees (a Monty Python/League of Gentleman mash up) who have compiled three Blueprints for devised comedy: Mafia? Western? Sci-fi?

These plays were performed at Edinburgh and on small regional tours between 2014 and 2017 using a poor-theatre aesthetic of minimal set, band accompaniment and detailed lighting to achieve the spoof. This well-presented set of scripts includes colour photos, detailed stage directions and colourful symbols to indicate the lighting state. Each page has many entertaining footnotes about what the boys did live at that point in the script (usually clowning antics and madcap extempore routines).