Review by Natalia Milne. Venue 33. Pleasance Courtyard – Pleasance Beyond

★★★★☆

Ivo Graham loves organised fun. He likes participating in games and trying to get reluctant people to get on board. He loves it so much he has based his whole show around the concept.

The show begins with a montage of clips from the latest series of the Channel 4 comedy panel show Taskmaster in which 5 comedians take part in wacky off-the-wall challenges presided over by Greg Davies, the Taskmaster, who scores and judges them. This programme was my introduction to Ivo Graham, and I think it was a smart move to draw the audience’s attention to this. In keeping with the style of the programme an instruction flashes on the screen – someone has to choose Ivo’s outfit from the clothes on the rail. This really set the tone for the rest of the evening.

Ivo loves Top Trumps (a card game), and before the show you get the opportunity to create a card about yourself using an online form (and taking a selfie) and scoring yourself on a number of categories. These cards are projected onto the screen, and Ivo goes through them and calls out to the members of the audience about the information they included. This was engaging and provided a good opportunity for crowd interaction, which Ivo does effortlessly. A discussion about Club Penguin (an online multiplayer game) with one audience member proved to be hilarious. And some of the biggest laughs of the evening came from a story Ivo told about making Top Trumps cards based on an incident in his family. There was also talk of the show The Traitors and how Ivo hijacked a New Years Eve party with his Claudia Winkleman wig on, on a mission to get them all to play. It was brilliant.

The highlight of the show was the Pentathlon: Two people in the crowd (one from each side of the audience) were invited to the stage to compete in a series of games based on the Top Trump categories. The audience was rooting for the person from their side, and had a lot of fun with the ensuing hi-jinks.

I guess one potential criticism of the show is that it doesn’t dig into issues; there is no profound central theme or narrative. It is just about fun and games. I don’t see that as a problem. If you want to see a comedy show that is deep and makes you reflect on life then you are absolutely spoilt for choice in the Fringe, and perhaps you shouldn’t see this. I found the concept of a mass games-night to be refreshing and highly original.