Showstopper! (Picture by Gabrielle Motola]

AN improvised musical will be created before the audience’s eyes at a Welwyn Garden City theatre when Showstopper comes to town next week.

REMEMBER those musical films where a hapless cast would find themselves without a venue and would decide – with no discernible rehearsal or script – to put the show on “right here – in the barn”?

Well, the cast of the award-winning West End and BBC Radio 4 smash hit Showstopper! The Improvised Musical evidently do, too.

And theatre-goers in WGC can see the results at the Hawthorne Theatre, Campus West, later this month.

The premise is simple. Creative director Dylan Emery has just received a very important phone call from West End producer Cameron Mackintosh.

The concept for his latest show has fallen flat with the theatrical impresario and he must turn to the assembled audience to help him come up with a new idea and secure the pitch.

Creating a musical from scratch, what follows is pure comic genius, utterly unpredictable and side-splittingly funny.

Hailed by The Telegraph as “hideously talented”, the cast of seven, underscored by a three-piece band, create a complete musical before your very eyes.

Understanding the conventions and clichés of the form, they bring a full length, satisfying and downright hilarious show to life based on the most bizarre suggestions from the watching audience.

You want a musical about werewolves seeking out lost love in the style of Lloyd Webber? You can have it.

You want a Rodgers and Hammerstein retelling of the collapse of the banking system set on the moon? You could have that too!

Anything can – and probably will – happen on stage, and you’ll be too busy crying with laughter to think about how daft it all is.

If you like improvised comedy, six-part harmony, lavish song and dance numbers, musical theatre or all of the above, you can’t afford to miss Showstopper! The Improvised Musical.

The show arrives at the Hawthorne Theatre hot from the West End on Saturday, February 11.

The shows starts at 8pm and tickets cost £12.