An entirely improvised musical comedy by the cast of PRONTO that replays the story of John Carpenter's 1982 film The Thing from the audience's suggestions.
PRONTO are taking on The Thing at the Oh Yeah Music Centre on Sunday 25 October, and it's not a script. The whole show is improvised on the night, built around John Carpenter's 1982 sci-fi horror classic. If you know the film, you'll remember the setup: a group of American researchers in Antarctica come across a shapeshifting alien that can assimilate and imitate any organism it touches, which slowly turns the whole camp into a mess of paranoia and conflict. That's the starting point, but the rest is made up as they go.
What makes it work is that the cast takes suggestions from the audience and plays the story as if they've never seen it before. They mess with the details: what if the creature hid inside an animal other than a dog? What if the scene was set somewhere other than the research station? What if the researchers armed themselves with something other than flamethrowers? It's the same story, just shifted around by whatever the room throws at them.
The cast on the night is Gerard Donnelly, Eliza Downey, Eddie Goodwin, Aaron Marshall and Niall McKenna. It's a musical, so they'll be singing their way through the paranoia, and since it's all improvised, no two performances end up the same.
Every week we pick 🏆 the 5 best 🏆 things to do in Belfast and send them to your inbox. Just one weekly email, no spam.
By submitting your email, you accept our Privacy Policy
The venue is the Oh Yeah Music Centre at 15-21 Gordon Street, Belfast's dedicated music hub since 2007. It's also home to the NI Music Exhibition, which has memorabilia from Northern Ireland's biggest names, including Snow Patrol, Van Morrison and Stiff Little Fingers. The show runs from 19:30 to 23:00, tickets are £10, and it's for ages 18 and over.
