‘Present’-ing Friday Night Live

Improv and sketch comedy at The Pond.

Presents, Mount Allison’s improv group, is great at making things up on the spot, but Friday night they reintroduced Friday Night Live, a scripted and rehearsed sketch. With student union president Melissa O’Rourke as host and Max Grizzly and the Entertainment as musical guest, the evening at The Pond proved to be a success.

The show included a wide variety of comedy sketches. It incorporated a video with Beyonce’s “Partition” playing in the background, and satires of contemporary and relevant cultural and political subjects like Justin Bieber and Rob Ford. The show also made light of Sackville, as one cast member joked, “if you smell bad and have a beard, there’s a place for you in Sackville.”

FNL was reintroduced this semester after having been used by the group in the past. Cast member Tom Hearn said, “FNL is something that Presents has done before. I decided to take it under my wing and mount it again this year. The sketches were written by myself and other cast members, so it was a group effort.”

Although the sketches were well done and there is no doubt that they were thoroughly enjoyed by audience members, the four students who performed off-script at the end of the show really stole the show. They proved that improv really is their forte. Asking the audience for suggestions of where to begin, they came up with “eating at a buffet.” From there, the four students worked off of each other’s ideas and came up with some very interesting, very absurd, and very entertaining sketches. From being at McDonald’s, to a dinner theatre, to shooting ducks, and talking with fake French accents, they definitely got the audience’s attention. Among the four students stood Tom Hearn and Andrew Johnston—both cast members who were strong performers and comedians, and left audience members on the edge of their seats.

Presents host improv shows every Wednesday at 9:30 pm at The Pond, so make sure to stop by and check them out. If you missed this Friday Night Live, make sure to catch the  next two shows they have planned for the semester.

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