What’s not to love? _{by Madelaine Empson}

Hands up if you love horror! Hands up if you love comedy! Now wave those arms in the air and run like a monster’s chasing you to BATS Theatre for It Came From Beyond The Script (ICFBTS).

Premiering at the New Zealand Improv Festival in October last year, ICFBTS comes courtesy of the big, juicy brain of Malcolm Morrison, an improv pioneer who has created over 30 shows and constantly has to fend off hungry zombies. 

"I love horror as a genre," Morrison says. “It’s so wonderfully camp! Simple stories, great characters, and the interplay of raucous laughter with nail-biting tension – what’s not to love? This show arose from the simple question: how do we create that lovely sense of tension and scary monsters in minimalist improvised theatre?”

It Came From Beyond the Script will feature a cast of top local improvisers and actors, the musical talents of Lia Kelly (the creative mind behind Squash Co. Arts Collective’s One Night Band), and the lighting wizardry of D’ Woods. The tech operator will be tasked with running the bespoke software Morrison has designed for the show, projecting text, images, and videos; editing on the fly; and managing a soundboard of spooky sonics.

Simmering cinema, screams, and howls of laughter in one cauldron, this avant-garde potion of improvised horror-comedy and cutting-edge audio-visual technology should be downed in one from the 19^th to the 23^rd of March.