The Pitch Night concept is brilliant. Think of it as a mash-up of Dragons’ Den and Whose Line Is It Anyway? A fast-paced improv performance in which three audacious stand-ups give sales presentations on products that don’t exist, from companies pulled out of thin air.
To dial up tension, the audience can add to the pitch presentation in real time using the show’s exclusive app. Meaning every new slide creates potential for plenty of sweat-inducing hard-sell ridiculousness.
It’s a great idea for a show and we loved watching the carnage unfold. The three stand-ups / budding entrepreneurs had to think fast on their feet to sell the unsellable, scale the unscalable and convince us, the audience, to buy their brilliantly unique or utterly useless products.
The show’s host, Ollie, was on top form, steering the performance by challenging the comedians with additional pitch questions and encouraging the audience to do the same. Not many of us did. Probably because the presentations were happening at breakneck improv speed, so it was hard to think of anything decent to ask between slides.
The three stand-ups were great but two clearly outshone the other. It takes a certain level of comedic flair to improv a sales pitch like a thirsty wanker from The Apprentice. And the show (although perhaps still in its early concept stage) was really good fun to watch and participate in.
We saw Pitch Night on a small screen in a tiny pub venue (Laughing Horse at the Temple Bar), but we can easily imagine seeing the show at Fringe events in the future on a huge TED Talks screen to an audience of hundreds. Keep your eyes peeled for this.
You’ve got two chances left to see the show this time around – Thursday 25th May and Thursday 1st June – don’t miss out, it’s worth your investment.
By Christina Angus
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