Comedy review: Improv Centre’s Deadly Dinner Party serves up killer comedy
Audience “assistance” ensures the mystery story’s plot twists always verge on the absurd, right up to the riotous final scene
Deadly Dinner Party’s. Chris Casillan, Jacki Gunn, Caitlin Maira, Meaghan Hommy, and Alan Pavlakovic.
The Improv Centre presents Deadly Dinner Party on Friday and Saturday evenings to October 30
WITH FALL UNDER WAY and spooky season creeping in, The Improv Centre is right on cue with its latest show, Deadly Dinner Party.
Led by artistic director Alan Pavlakovic, the reliably hilarious troupe serves up an Agatha Christie–inspired spoof with murder on the menu and a colourful lineup of suspects. Audience members “assist” Detective Catchem (sound it out) by shouting out suggestions that shape the evening’s characters, relationships, and secrets, setting the stage for comic chaos.
In a familiar convention of comedic murder mysteries, the performer playing the victim in the first act returns as the detective in the second. On opening night, Meaghan Hommy pulled double duty. Her victim, cheekily also named Meaghan, was a millionaire who knew one secret too many about her dinner guests. In a fun character-establishing sequence at the top of the show, audience suggestions determined that Meaghan acquired her fortune in the marble industry.
Thanks to more audience ideas, we also learned about each of Meaghan’s dinner guests. We had Jack (Jacki Gunn), a reformed mobster who now owns the world’s last Blockbuster; Senator Wyatt Horse (Jordan Michaux), whose campaign promise of unlimited free ponies led to his political downfall; Madam (Syd Campbell), a medium who discovered her psychic abilities through fracking (don’t think too hard about this one); Saphron (Emily Schoen), Meaghan’s third wife, whom she met while competing on Survivor; and a duke (Pavlakovic) from a fictional country known for creating holiday songs.
Meaghan welcomes this madcap group into her home, including Saphron, who, despite being her wife, has apparently been relegated to the guest house, where she sleeps on a bamboo rack. Much of the first act unfolds through short scenes in which the guests explore the house and interact, giving the cast ample opportunity to flex its formidable improv skills.
The tech team becomes an active part of the comedy, introducing sound effects and musical cues that challenge the performers to respond in real time. When music begins playing during one of the duke’s scenes, Pavlakovic must instantly launch into one of his country’s traditional “holiday songs”.
Later, the duke complains that Meaghan never visits his country anymore, prompting her to blame its convoluted commute. Together, Hommy and Pavlakovic spontaneously establish that reaching this country requires Meaghan to fly to London, travel somewhere east, and then ride a camel the rest of the way. Such exchanges generate huge laughs while also developing the characters and planting possible motives. The duke, after all, hints that he would like to be more than friends with Meaghan.
The second act sees Hommy reappearing as Detective Catchem, now that Meaghan has been murdered, and the investigation begins. The audience gets to play a huge role in determining the outcome, as they offer ideas about the secrets Meaghan knew about her guests.
On opening night, the audience had a lot of fun with this, supplying outlandish ideas that led to some terrific comedy. For example, one secret was that the duke was Meaghan’s twin sister. Unphased, Pavlakovic responded by using his masterful improv skills to concoct a zany character backstory involving reconstructive surgery, and a new identity in his fictional country.
The mystery climaxes in a riotous final scene as Catchem unmasks the killer. Of course, in the anything-can-happen world of improv, the solution is conceived in the moment, making the outcome as unpredictable for the performers as it is for the audience. The opening night cast expertly rolled with every unexpected turn, delivering exceptional comedy while keeping the whodunit’s narrative structure on course. In particular, Hommy, Pavlakovic, and Shoen delivered standout performances.
Deadly Dinner Party leaves us wanting another helping, and fortunately, a return visit promises an entirely new case. Each performance features a different combination of six members from The Improv Centre’s ensemble, while fresh audience suggestions generate new character traits, motives, and plot twists. The only thing audiences can safely predict at this dinner party is a killer night of comedy. 
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