Cattle | Kate Coates and Cale Bain

After doing a deep dive into all things improv and seeing three back-to-back shows on the previous day, I was ready for some more long-form ridiculousness courtesy of Cattle who had brought their show up from Sydney for the inaugural Improv Festival.

Cattle is Sydney duo Kate Coates and Cale Bain, long-time friends and the directors of the biggest improv company in Australia  - ITS - Improv Theatre Sydney. They were both standout performers for me in the previous evening’s ‘Interstate Mate’s for both their stage presence and ability to inhabit a range of characters who all  dark side.

As per many improv shows, Kate and Cale set up their scenarios with prompts from an audience member. What sets them apart is that some of the best laughs of the set came from in depth discussions with an audience member that followed the prompt. The duo’s natural responses to people’s (over) sharing that came from a place genuine surprise, curiosity and the right amount of gentle teasing was a joy to watch. When they received a response too sincere and moving even for them, they could only respond with, “We can’t mock that!”

Once again my attempts at trying to describe the improv on display could not do justice to the scenes that unfurled before us.

So I won’t even try this time.

What I will do is give props to is the duo’s skills in the form. The scenes that they created were intricate, and hilarious, with more than a little darkness sprinked throughout. They leant into the humanity of each scenario, heightening scenes for maximum effect, rather than playing to the quick, surreal laughs you usually see in short-form improv.  Not once did a scene flounder for me, always engaging me until the end. The performance quality and comic timing of the duo helped to take each scene to another level. Callbacks and audience prompts were also used perfectly throughout, with previously established characters and ideas showing up at unexpected moments to help drive scenes forward.

Cattle differentiated themselves from the previous night’s performance by how they concluded each scene they performed. At the end of the scene, they would break character and ask each other about what would happen with the characters in different scenario, for example, happens in thirty years time to what would happen when a character goes home, and then launch into a new scenario with the same characters.

While it was interesting to see what other humour could be derived from taking the same creations in a new direction, it was a little jarring to watch the duo break character and edit, before they launched into a new scene. Every time they did that, I wondered if they could carry out their edit as a part of the scene itself without breaking.

This is a minor quibble though, as Kate Coates and Cale Bain of Cattle are masters at long-form improv and it is an absolte joy to watch them create hilarious and engaging scenes on the spot from discussions with the audience. If you’ve ever been curious about improv, or love to see masters of their craft, make sure to check them out when they next return to Brisbane.