In Perfect Harmony

“Over the last six years some of the best shows we’ve ever done have come from children’s suggestions. Kids improvise a lot - they naturally want to play - and it’s that spirited play that really carries improvisation forward” says Adam Meggido, co-founder of the award-winning musical comedy troupe, The Showstoppers. It was this realisation that prompted the team to return to Edinburgh for a sixth year with an interactive show especially for children – The Showstoppers’ Family Hour - where the performers are completely dependent on the audience to build the show, from the show’s subject to its musical style. Parents be prepared, you could suddenly find yourselves up on stage being a crewmember on a Viking long ship or helping create a song about mermaids.

Meggido is excited about what his performers will get from the young showgoers, and vice versa. For him, it’s not only about getting the kids involved – shouting out and having fun - it’s the potential for improvisation to be a valuable skill for young people. “Improvisation is really about listening and not just with your ears, its a kind of listening with your whole body so that you can say: ‘I’m going to listen to you and I’m willing to be changed by what it is that you have to say.’ That’s the art of real listening. But we aren’t trained anywhere in our lives to listen to each other very effectively, and this is why it's so good for kids.” 

An audience full of excited kids can be daunting at the best of times, don’t they worry that could go horribly wrong and a deathly silence falls on the stage as a performer fumbles for what to say next? Meggido is charmingly childlike in his reply, “There is no such thing as wrong. If someone stands there and suddenly runs out of things to say then they become The Person Who Forgets Things. And then someone else will come in and will build on that. Of course what the audience sees is what seems to be a mistake turned into gold and that’s a really wonderful moment to share.”