JADAR

★★★★☆

Written by H.P. Lovecraft in 1928, The Call of Cthulhu certainly boasts an intriguing mythos, with monstrous apparitions, tentacled incomprehensible beings, and disturbing cult rituals. Chaosium Inc’s 1981 tabletop BRP delves deeper into this horrific world, with characters reaching the brink of insanity while investigating strange occurrences and deaths.

Call of Cthulhu Live is a play one-shot with six talented voice actors and tabletop gaming regulars bringing the game to life on stage. While its not a play per-say (the actors are sat jotting down statistics and rolling the dice), the descriptive storytelling combined with fantastic character building make for a strangely captivating experience.

Leading the investigators is Mass Effect’s Mark Meer as the Keeper of Arcane Lore. His deeply mysterious narrations constantly keep audience members on the edge of their seat despite little visual stimuli. His descriptions of the monster were particularly jaw-dropping – his disturbed pauses and accentuated pronunciations sent shivers down my spine as the grotesque “spiralised” corpse rose, finger bones protruding, eyes bulging, throat gurgling and skin flapping in sickeningly vivid narration (right up the alley of any horror fanatic like myself)!

Additionally, Meer’s chemistry with the others is palpable… from his exasperation with the group missing glaring NPC interactions to his bewilderment with the more unruly investigators’ madcap ideas- it makes for some hilarious interactions.

The show thrives in its entertaining back and forth between the close-knit investigators. Their friendships and passion for the game are what initially hooked me (a newbie to live RPGs) into the performance.

With a runtime around 3 and a half hours long, it is a long watch, best aided by snacks and (the ever-open bar for) refreshments. Despite a slightly sluggish introduction to the cast, their appointed characters and ad-libbed backstories, as the actor’s really sink into and flesh out their roles, it becomes strangely captivating. Action starts slow but upon new discoveries, little pieces slot into place albeit hilariously muddled with random chaotic choices new to each show.

In this performance, Baldur’s Gate 3’s Samantha Béart played an Eastern European thief with a troubled past. Her realistic and raw portrayal of Sofia was marked with moments of trauma and heartbreak, yet mixed with levity in her aptitude for stealing valuable objects and murder weapons and jabbing at the “ineptitude” of copper Jasper Cartwright.

Cartwright, best known for Three Black Halflings, played the in over-his-head Yankie cop with farcical confidence, fumbling around in bloody puddles, prodding mysterious artefacts and losing control of his bodily functions. The combination of unlucky rolls and his perfectly portrayed foolishness led to some of the show’s best riotously fun sequences.

Dragon Age’s Belinda Cornish embodied grace and buffoonery as the perplexed Southern belle landlady Mrs Piglet. Whether it be giving her son twopence to buy a hot dog without the bun, or caressing and healing the monster in delirium, her character was kind, but preposterously misguided.

Oxventure’s Johnny Choidini played a dubious businessman who was quick to lose his sanity, fighting with and shooting the cop in his state of madness, and threatening the oblivious book seller. His non-chalant and over-enthused movie trailer voice in the darkest situations led to lots of belly-laughs from the audience.

Similarly, The Leftovers’ Josephine McAdam was Scottish eavesdropper Mrs McVitie Hob Nob, who was constantly baffled by objects, lobbing boxes around the room, setting fires, wearing shoes on their hands and licking blood off the floor. While all characters were a little ludicrous, their character took the cake (and probably ate it knowing McVitie)!

The interactions between Hob Knob and book-obsessed brother Hobert Knob (actor’s name not given) were equally fun, the two tumbling down the stairs together in a squabble or exchanging dazed glances over strange Greek poetry. Of course we were treated to a neat LOTR reference met with a hearty applause when his “precious” mystical book slowly corrupts his mind.

Each actor was so fun with their admittedly deranged set of characters, embodying them vocally and intellectually. Their decisions filled the described action scenes with a refreshing and unpredictable energy.

Accompanying the storytelling are smoke effects, spooky lighting and immersive soundscapes from creepy backing tracks to a few distorted songs coming from the next apartment’s crackly radio. While the smoke effects didn’t really add much to the atmosphere (used most bafflingly in the intervals rather than during the action), the inclusion of a little music was a nice touch since the show relies less on visuals and more on tension and imagination.

Perhaps a few visual pieces would be interesting, maybe occasionally using the projector screen to show an image of the room (which they tried to show audience members on a tiny piece of paper), but I do appreciate that a lot of the show’s value lies in the vivid mental images it conjures rather than literal depictions- an apt metaphor for the similarly indistinct Cthuhl-ian creatures.

Surprisingly, Call of Cthulhu Live is fairly accessible for newcomers to the game or lore alike. While you might not understand every dice throw and statistic by the end of it, repeated mechanics (first aid and dexterity roles, sanity levels etc), and success/fail labels guide audiences through the ins and outs of the game without much difficulty. Simply put, most actions result in casting the dice resulting in good or bad consequence depending on their roll’s success, and character stats.