Review by Jay Richardson

Basing your show on a cult television series seems to be a good way of ensuring a sizeable, well-disposed crowd for a relatively low-profile act.

What's more, Brighton-based improv troupe The Maydays initially appear to have struck gold with Quantum Leap, the US time-travelling, body-swap saga. After all, didn't Sam Beckett have to improvise after each leap until he found out what injustice he'd been sent to put right? Potentially, you can set a scene anywhere in recent American history too.

The group recreate the sentimental opening titles with just the right blend of slickness and rudimentary props. Rhiannon Vivian has the cigar-chomping, sexually leery prurience of Dean Stockwell as Al down to a tee, not to mention the multicoloured assemblage of plastic bricks that passes for his malfunctioning computer Ziggy, its first whirrs and beeps receiving a huge cheer of recognition.

Call me a spoilsport though, because I feel they might have rigged up something more imaginative for the mirror moment when Sam sees his new body for the first time and panics 'Oh boy!' A quick Google Image search backstage projected onto a screen maybe?

Given that the series occasionally deposited Sam into a woman's body, the fact that The Maydays in this show are exclusively female barely merits mention, save for the comic possibilities it throws up for transgressing gender roles.

However, each new show features a guest improviser as Sam, and on the day I saw it, the honour fell to Racing Minds' Daniel Roberts. He actually distinguished himself pretty well in his leap into a rogue preacher, trying to save a hick town from some unspecified wrong that he may or may not have perpetrated. Yet herein lies a huge problem with the show.

In the series, there was scarcely a moment that didn't feature Scott Bakula on screen as Sam. Few shows have ever been so reliant on their two leads. Here though, in order to give everyone in the troupe sufficient stage time, interminable, trivial scenes of minor characters take place both while he's off-stage and on. As befits the long-form style, there's a desire to realise the truth of these people. Yet unlike on television, there's no guarantee of a satisfying ending with all the narrative threads drawn together. So the natural, conflicting desire of the audience is for Sam to comprehend why he's there as soon as possible and save the day, rather than be fully introduced to every hick in the village.

In the series, Al popping up deus ex machina to offer advice feels appropriate within the formulaic conventions of the script. In improv though, it just feels like cheating, a way of arbitrarily moving the action on when the performers haven't earned it.

Still, I sensed rising tension in the room, as a coherent plot failed to materialise in scene after scene, we in the crowd were also destined never to make the leap home. The Maydays were obviously aware of it too, as suddenly we had a rush of confessions and romantic declarations, based on little previously established.

As a concept, Oh Boy! probably only has a 32 per cent chance of succeeding. Wait, it's dropping … 27 per cent … 21 per cent … 18 per cent … do something Sam!

Review date: 8 Aug 2014
Reviewed by: Jay Richardson
Reviewed at: PBH Free Fringe @ Bar Bados