It sounds like a very simple concept; pit two teams against each other and see who can make the audience laugh. However, I must have genuinely laughed about twice during the whole show. Before going any further it must be stated that this event is definitely targeted at children and therefore has a cringey pantomime feel to it. The kids clearly enjoyed it, but as an adult I was left disappointed. I was hoping that there would be a few jokes in there ‘just for adults’ but there was nothing.
To keep both of the teams in check and to oversee proceeding there is a referee. On this occasion it was Kate McCabe, who did an incredible job of keeping a bunch of overexcited children under control and entertained. For this show it was a battle of the sexes - Boys vs Girls. The line-ups were; Chris Tavner, Darryl Fishwick, Steven Catterall, Jade Fearnley, Liz Day and Vicki Mitchem. Only one of them stood out as a performer and that was Fearnley. She was the only one that possessed the fearless attitude of an improv performer. 
During the show the two teams compete in a number of games to win points. My personal favourite was when they asked the audience to supply them with some famous movie quotes. The players then had to drop these quotes such as “Nobody puts Baby in the corner” into their conversation. Quite surprisingly the players made this work and it seemed like a normal situation with a couple of famous movie quotes thrown in.
A low point of the night was when the players were having a conversation but at the referee’s discretion the location would change and so do the accents. This is a game where Fearnley stood head and shoulders above the other players; doing a great job at the accents. Unfortunately the other five varied from ok to extremely poor at accents and relied on stereotypes to carry the humour. Although these are done in the name of comedy, they could easily be interpreted as offensive. If this game returns, the players need to improve their accents, and learn more about the cultures of the areas they are joking about.
One of the games involved asking one couple in the audience some details about their relationship; how they met etc. and the players had to create a scene from it. It was quite difficult to hear what the couple were saying and the referee didn’t repeat it, so I was a little unsure of what was about to happen. It must be said the girls did an exceptional job on this, picking up on a lot of detail from the couple. One of the boys just removed himself from the scene, which to me is a massive no-no, especially in improvisation.
ComedySportz perform regularly across the Greater Manchester region. This is definitely a show the kids will enjoy, the adults not so much.
Reviewer: Brian Madden
Reviewed: 20th February 2016
