Yesterday was a rare night of babysitting (yay Grandma!) so we headed out for a festive evening spent with the improv whizzes at Bad Dog Theatre on the Danforth. There a cast of seven (plus a piano player) improvised loosely through the Dickens story, asking questions of the audience and using their suggestions such as:

Where does Scrooge work? (A petstore)
What affliction does Tiny Tim have? (Narcolepsy)
Who beat out young Scrooge for the Employee of the Month award at Fezziwig’s? … Peter!

That’s right, our own Peter got hauled up on stage and asked a few questions (what’s your name? what do you do? do you have any pets? what are their names?) before getting regaled with an instantly-composed song about said topics. Though Peter actually made the actors skip a beat when he answered that our goldfishes’ names are Sid and Nancy and that Sid’s full name is Sid Fishious.

Wonderful work by all, including two other audience members: one dragooned into being the hands of Mrs. Cratchit; and a teenaged, very “whatever” Ghost of Christmas Future.

The show is a total hoot and it changes every night; and at $12 a head it’s cheap at twice the price. Catch it quick, since there are only three shows left (December 17, 19 and 26).