As a complete novice to the D&D realm, this event was one I had no muscle memory for. But for the seasoned adventurers in the room, this was night two of a three-night quest. A quick show of hands revealed that over two-thirds of the audience had returned for the penultimate chapter of murderous mobs, mystery, attempted regicide, spellcasting and capes. 

Commanding over this chaos is D&D Master and founder of Improv RPG, the mercurial Scott McArdle. With the ease of someone who’s been doing this for more than a decade, he provided the perfect primer: “We take the world’s most popular table-top role-playing game and combine it with the least popular form of theatre - improv comedy.” 

To say we entered night two on a cliff-hanger was an understatement. Three kingdoms in peril, a one-hundred-year-old magical pact broken, fiends disguised as friends and a hero with narcolepsy. The stakes could not get any higher… and then they did! 

Weaving their way through a completely improvised, bonkers plot, the cast of four (plus McArdle string pulling from the sidelines), two musicians and a couple of twenty-sided dice had us teetering on the edge of our seats. 

The world unfolded like a Shakespearean tragedy — if Macbeth or Hamlet were performed by unhinged hand puppets. It was by turns laugh-out-loud funny, breath-holdingly tense and wildly satisfying.

There’s nothing quite like a good plot point intentionally bubbling away in the background, only to be plucked out of the air just at the point you almost forgot it existed. These players came to play! 

Improv RPG know what they are doing. If this is what theatre can be, then we need to invest in more dice. 

Go see it, no D&D knowledge needed, but you’ll walk out feeling like you’ve levelled up.