What Does the Title Matter Anyway

“Is that a suggestion or a review of this show?” enquires Clive Anderson, striding centre-stage having taken mock offence at a mighty holler from somewhere deep within this vast crowd. That scene suggestion? The Geriatric Hunger Games.

It’s almost 25 years since Anderson first manned the buzzer for Whose Line is it Anyway – briefly on BBC Radio, then a ten-series Channel 4 run. It's still going strong in the States, the rights firmly tied up, hence the knowing title of this live comeback show.

It certainly hasn’t harmed the ticket take-up, and the audience response to these returning heroes is almost football-like. Which is intriguing, given that Whose Line... was widely regarded as an impenetrable bastion of Oxbridge smugness (perhaps illustrated best by Viz comic’s version, in which an exasperated Roger Mellie ended up punching John Sessions).

Then again, the influx of North Americans helped, and two of them shine in the revolving cast on this occasion, Greg Proops and Colin Mochrie joining the gifted Josie Lawrence, Steve Frost and new music man Phil Pope – who wrote the original theme but isn’t allowed to play it here. This may all sound awkward but actually the copyright business proves a useful running gag: even Anderson’s buzzer is now a bell.

As for the games, they’re very much as-you-were, from the highbrow to the ridiculous, Samuel-Beckett-on-a-submarine to the one where someone needs to be bending over at all times. For these seasoned improvisers, you sense that straightening back up is the toughest test they’ll encounter all night.