Before she became a star via This Is Going to Hurt and One Day, Ambika Mod trained with improv company the Free Association. For three days on the fringe, she rejoins them, in one of two off-the-cuff shows they’re performing at the festival. 3 is a long-form(ish) format, in which three performers use three words from the audience to build three connected scenes. Tonight, Spies, Breakfast and Chicken trigger what I can just about call a story involving parents at a play area, a kinky one-night stand with musical accompaniment, and a misbegotten plan to save an egg from a grasping hen dealer.
FA are prominent players in a booming UK improv scene right now, and 3 is enjoyable from start to finish. Two of FA’s core team, Naomi Petersen and Graham Dickson, co-star here, and risk squeezing Mod out in the opening scene. She resorts to playing a character who can’t get a word in edgeways, while Petersen and Dickson variously flirt and scheme as two spies disguised as a mum and dad at a playground gate. That imbalance largely resolves itself, but – while she’s clearly a fine improviser – Mod performs at a lower-key pitch and pace than her co-stars. They’re more on the front foot and, once or twice, they steamroller her narrative ideas.
