Middeditch & Schwartz (2020)

REVIEW BY: ROBERT CHANDLER

MIDDLEDITCH & SCHWARTZ is essentially three fifty-minute improv shows starring Silicon Valley's Thomas Middleditch and Parks & Rec's Ben Schwartz.

It's easy to fear "improv"... it can be terrible, it can be indulgent, it can be more for the benefit of the performers than the audience but if, like me, you actively miss the glory days of WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY? and are reduced to watching MOCK THE WEEK just for a single moment of inspired Hugh Dennis brilliance, then be assured that MIDDLEDITCH & SCHWARZ is very good indeed!

Hoorah!

It helps that I love both the actors for their previous work but seeing them together, both relaxed and funny, with an edge of tension, on stage, is tremendous thing.

At the beginning of each show, recorded in a pretty big theatre, they ask the audience if anybody has an event coming up that they fear or are excited about. People respond. They then pick on one of the respondees and question them about it. A wedding, say, or a job interview. The details of the question give them moments they can use in the improv.

Then they turn themselves loose and create a story lasting around forty minutes, generating characters and incidents exploring the situation and using particular details from the questioning to seed the narrative.

What comes across is that the two men are exploring character types and storytelling structure. And making it all deliciously warm and funny.

A treat. On Netflix.