Red Mic‘s European circuit brings some of the funniest comedians on the continent through Tallinn on semiannual basis. On their most recent pass through in mid-October, they brought with them an adjacent show format, Comedians & (*similar to but legally distinct from) Dragons, presented by AtoMIC Comedy BCN. Ideal for a pre-sauna session Sunday afternoon at Heldeke!, Comedians & Dragons gathered a crowd of nerds and nerd-lovers for a snappy one-hour gaming session, where three comedians unfamiliar with tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs; this reviewer falls firmly in the “nerd” camp) were thrown into a sword-and-sorcery style adventure.
On 19 October, host Stuart Kennedy inflicted his award-winning dungeon master (DM) style on two Red Mic performers, Mariah Girouard and Fedor Ikelaar, and local favourite Sander Õigus. The concept, which Kennedy has brought to the Edinburgh Fringe multiple times and says has been accused of having “too much audience participation”, is that each comedian has developed their own character with little understanding of what they were in for. The audience, meanwhile, is deeply involved in the events and outcome of the story through the introduction of paper-slip spells and the invitation to, whenever we feel appropriate, change the characters’ dice rolls by shouting out ‘TWENTY’ or ‘ONE’ to allow for a critical hit or miss. The DM’s job is to build a narrative that imperils and challenges our intrepid explorers, while adapting on the fly to the rolls of the dice and the input of the comedians and audience alike.
The characters on this journey were not your standard elf ranger and orc barbarian types, but instead Stacey, Mother of Three (Mariah), Gary the British Tourist (Fedor), and Dave the Sentient Fried Egg (Sander). The setting was a small town with a troublesome guest up the nearby mountain path, and our daring adventurers were therefore sent off to investigate and, hopefully, resolve the problem and purge the local scourge. While more traditional TTRPG campaigns can take hours, weeks, or even years, this short-and-sweet jaunt relies on Kennedy’s time-keeping abilities as much as his improv skills to stick to the one-hour deadline. Hilariously character-driven choices lead us into and out of battles using unexpected powers ranging from hovering to vomit luges to summoning a minivan, with unexpected deaths and victory (mostly) snatched from the jaws of defeat.
The audience was roaring with awe and approval, and I genuinely hope they bring this format back around on Red Mic’s return in February. Comedians & Dragons is a gut-bustingly funny journey through high fantasy and lowbrow humour where we all get to participate in choosing our adventure.
Author: Laurie
Laurie likes alliteration, ambiance, and lists with three things.
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