Typically a style of theatre reserved solely for live performances, long form improvisation has finally made its way to Netflix, being led by comedians Thomas Middleditch (Silicon Valley) and Ben Schwartz (Parks and Recreation). The aptly titled Middleditch and Schwartz is broken up into three separate hour-long episodes, each filmed on different nights and featuring wildly different shows. The only element they all have in a common is a question asked to the audience at the beginning: “What is an event coming up that you are either looking forward to or dreading?”
From there, Middleditch and Schwartz take a single answer and engage with whichever audience member shouted it out, engaging them in conversations that often reveal strange details with rich comedic potential. You can count on those quirks being brought back later in the show, just as you think you had forgotten about them altogether. The greatest strength of both improvisers is a shared intuition that guides each story, working in complications and resolutions that sometimes seem too coincidental to be thought of on the fly.
Of course the downside to any improv show being recorded is that it is easier for viewers to scrutinise the logic of the plots. This instinct is something that needs to be let go. The joy of Middleditch and Schwartz isn’t in the tightness of its plots, but in seeing a living, dynamic piece of theatre come together in the moment, flaws and all.
An incidental recurring theme between all three episodes is the trouble Middleditch and Schwartz have remembering the names of the ensemble of characters they have created, and frequently jump between in a single scene. Errors such as these are often used as launch pads for new jokes, being worked into the story as character traits and offbeat story developments. In episode 1, the random appearance of a ghost could have easily been brushed aside as a mistake; instead, it is later given a purpose in the narrative, and even ends up providing a satisfying resolution to the main arc.
Middleditch is often the first to break character, but Schwartz is rarely far behind. There is a body swap that takes place in episode 3, muddling the story even further since both comedians have played both characters at some point. They recognise the confusing corner they have worked themselves into and take a solid few minutes to work out what has happened, both for the audience’s sake and their own. Rather than letting this drag the pacing down, it is moments like these that involve us as viewers even more. When the actors falter, we are just as mixed up in the chaos as them, unable to anticipate what comes next. Even though we watch through a screen, we feel as much a part of the show’s organic development as its live audience and performers.
Middleditch and Schwartz has made the successful leap from live theatre into online streaming, providing three entirely different but consistently hilarious improv shows. The multi-camera setup and smooth editing lets us follow the actors to every corner of the stage and even into the audience, letting us witness the actors’ spontaneous comedic reflexes without ever being showy enough to distract from their performances. In its first foray into translating long-form improv to streaming television Netflix has done incredibly well, but the real comedic talent here lies with Middleditch and Schwartz.
