Perth Voice Interactive

REMEMBER those “weirdos” at school who met in a classroom at lunchtime to roll dice with six thousand faces, cast spells and battle trolls in the board game Dungeons & Dragons?

Well, now they are literally having the last laugh with their hit comedy show Improv RPG.

Featuring a motley crew of performers who improvise their way through an action-packed game of Dungeons & Dragons – no sitting quietly at a table here – there’s plenty of fantasy, laughs and pop-culture mayhem.

The show is the brainchild of Scott McArdle, a self-confessed Dungeons & Dragons addict who has been a dungeon master (the guy who chairs the game and sets the narrative) since the age of 14.

McArdle is busy dusting off his mantle for a series of Improv RPG shows at WA Comedy Week.

“Nerdiness and comedy go hand-in-hand – we are constantly homaging and referencing pop culture in the show, and the nature of D&D means that you can re-skin classic stories as ridiculous fantasy adventures or that you can play a fantasy version of a celebrity,” McArdle says.

“We once did a show where three players played three characters based on The Phantom of the Opera, Liza Manelli, and Joan Jett…only one of them was a bard but they’d just decided to f*ck with me…the audience loved it…I loved it. I love this show.”

As the cast slash and hack their way through the bowels of a gloomy dungeon, performers are accompanied by a live pianist and often break out into song.

“One of our characters is a bard who will sing their way to success magically,” McArdle says.

“These songs – like the rest of our show – are 100 per cent improvised. Our D&D shows for WA Comedy Week are ‘One Shots’ which are standalone adventures with a different cast every night.”

The origins of Improv RPG can be traced back to 2016, when McArdle was asked by his old drama school chum/producer Dean Lovatt to adapt Dungeons & Dragons for the stage.

The show was a hit and over the next seven years they went on to hold about 100 sold-out performances at Fringe World, The Rechabite and Supanova, including the spin-off Call of Cthulhu, a horror-comedy that won Best Comedy at this year’s Fringe.

“Boy have we come a long way! Our very first shows were in a massive Spiegeltent but the idea was rough – we had very generous audiences (thankfully) and I then spent the next year working on the framework of the show, watching/talking to a lot of other improvisers, and collaborating within our ensemble of total legends,” McArdle says.

“We picked up a few more players, added some live instrumentation, and a year later we cracked the formula that has been our foundation ever since: light on plot, heavy on character, bounce off the audience and their suggestions.

“I’ve been the showrunner and lead dungeon master now since that very first Spiegeltent show, and am so proud of how far we’ve come – 95 per cent of our shows sell out in advance.”

Over the years, Dungeons & Dragons has slowly shed its nerdy image and crossed over into the mainstream, thanks to its inclusion in shows like Stranger Things and the recent Hollywood blockbuster Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves.

McArdle says its popularity is growing every year with folk learning to play by watching live streams of Dungeons & Dragons on Twitch and listening to podcasts about the game: “Shows like Critical Role and Dimension 20 changed the game and dismantled a lot of the mystery/barriers that people had to playing the game,” he says.

“I’ve been a dungeon master since I was 14 (over half my life now) and what was once my shameful secret is now the thing I am weekly recognised on the street for – it’s wild!

“I also am playing more D&D/table-top RPGs than ever before because all the actors I work with are realising how much of a useful tool it is to practice performance.” 

Despite all the success, McArdle isn’t resting on his laurels and is working on a new project for 2024 – a Dungeons & Dragons musical.

Let’s just hope Pierce Brosnan isn’t cast as an Irish wizard who likes to sing.

Improv RPG is at the Blue Room Theatre in Northbridge at 8pm from November 21-24 as part of WA Comedy Week. For tix and details see wacomedyweek.com.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK