The Night Whistler, Film Noir, BATS Improv, Fri 10 April, 2020 ****

Film Noir improvised show
BATS Improv San Francisco (Via Zoom)

Reviewer: Kate Herbert, 10 April 2020 (Melbourne, Australia)
Stars: **** 

Link to recorded show: Film Noir–The Night Whistler

Watch BATS shows: Melbourne Aust time 1pm Fri/Sat/Sun (8pm SF, Thur/Fri/Sat) 
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BATS on Zoom - Film Noir - cast of The Night Whistler

I just watched a totally improvised performance by BATS Improv in the style of Film Noir – and it was all performed via Zoom. You can watch these remarkable shows from your couch.

The title, The Night Whistler, was provided by an audience member. If you’re wondering how there’s an audience for a Zoom performance, the Chat box on the right side of screen is filled with audience responses. They can say all the things that they would normally be whispering in the dark if they were in the theatre.

The five performers appear in their Zoom screen boxes when they enter the story. Each scene has a black and white, Film Noir, San Francisco backdrop: a dark alley, the foggy marina, Chinatown, a luxury apartment, a down-at-heel P.I.’s office, a street corner.

Eliza McNamara (Lisa Rowland), the daughter of a newspaper magnate, employs hard-bitten, heavy-smoking, whiskey-drinking Private Investigator, Tom Barnes, to protect her from a man following her. Meanwhile, the Night Whistler is killing people all over San Francisco. Everybody has a secret, and everybody wants somebody dead.

As the narrating P.I. Tom Barnes, Tim Orr improvises some lines that could have come straight from the Raymond Chandler manual: ‘The day I need help from cops is gonna be a wet day in the Sahara.’

The cast may be in empty rooms in different houses looking at each other in little boxes on a Zoom screen, but they pass each other newspapers and glasses of whiskey and put their hands on another character's shoulder. There's even a screen kiss! Just lean in and pucker up!

There is background music of the period, sound effects, gunshots, plenty of seedy characters, and lots of dead bodies in the last scene.

Tom Barnes the P.I. says, ‘Life’s not scripted, baby!’  and this show certainly wasn’t. It was gripping, hilarious and totally improvised.

Kate Herbert

Cast:

Tim Orr

Regina Saisi

Lisa Rowland

Dave Dennison

Ken Robertson

Ben Johnson

Remi Frazier– backdrops and sound effects