An Oxford Imps show is never anything less than a treat. Oxford’s pre-eminent “yes-and”ers delivered their first improv show of term on Monday with both a packed house and a packed stage, with 14 of the troupe’s best and brightest flexing their ad-lib muscles.

The structure, for those unfamiliar, is a set of Whose Line is It Anyway-style improvised challenges based on audience suggestions. These can range from rapid-fire vignettes, like ‘World’s Worst’, to more elaborate set pieces like an improvised novel (here, the curiously risotto-centric Bricks of Death), or the show’s closer, an improvised musical.

The excitement of the Imps’ Trinity term premiere was palpable throughout. I’ve written before about the irrepressible sense of camaraderie the group bring to their performances; the visible laughter, the pats on the back as each player concludes their scenes. Part of the joy of an Imps show is the sense that you’re watching a group who simply can’t wait to work together, eager to bounce ideas off one another and endlessly supportive as their castmates build the track in front of them with the train mere moments behind.

Special mention to a few particular standouts - Vicky, as ever, the consummate compère for the show’s first half, providing some absolutely cackle-inducing one-liners (her “one for the beehive, one for the ME-hive” as the world’s worst beekeeper getting high off their own supply of smoke was inspired, and I’ll be waiting for the extremely specific context in which I can steal it). She also provided some necessary structure and grounding when the momentum of certain scenes began to lose itself slightly - improv is chaos with structure, and she is one of the deftest hands in the cast at realising it.

If ever Jon and Fuuad engage in a pun-off at any point, let me know and I will be the first to grab tickets - their off-the-dome wordplay, especially during the more quickfire segments, is remarkable to watch. Both also bring a committed physicality to their characterisations, including a doddery cat-lady out to seduce an unfortunate milkman and a vocally whip-happy prison guard. James too brought some top-notch accent and dialect work, shifting from noirish Bogartisms to Shakespearean prose in a wink, and delivering some of the evening’s most killer punchlines.

Adrian also deserves their flowers; their undefeated run during the improvised novel opener marked them out as one of the most fluid and adaptable performers on that stage, as did their near-unflappable ability to play a cast of thousands at a public pool. They definitely received some of the night’s most solid laughs, and the instances in which there were stumbles were less down to any weakness in the joke and more down to cast members forgetting to clap them out at opportune times. In the second half, Lili shone in Church! The Musical as reformed Bible-napper and St. Hilda’s School for Naughty Naughty Girls alumna Bunny (a particular highlight being her dressing down of New/Old Testament God), while Chloé cemented her presence as one of the cast’s boldest and most lateral-thinking performers with some back-and-forth exchanges that occasionally had their castmates hard-pressed to keep up.

There’s no denying the talent in that room, but the evening wasn’t without a few stumbles. As mentioned previously, in games where claps or similar gestures were required to end a scene, it seemed this slipped performers’ minds occasionally, meaning that lines that would be very effective with a sudden cutoff lingered a tad too long.

The dynamics in the second half were also occasionally a bit unbalanced - there are clearly some very confident performers in that ensemble who are willing to take risks for the sake of a bit, which I respect, but at times their need to deliver (admittedly ecstatically funny) interjections detracted from the flow of the scene and didn’t really allow it to breathe. The musical threw this into sharper relief - while I loved Bunny and the Sergeant, I really wanted to see more of Sol as the plucky young priest on a mission to forgive Timmy and Bunny the wayward Bible thieves, a plot line which fell by the wayside. As it stood, the musical itself only had three numbers in it, which meant that their pianist’s excellent musical accompaniment didn’t really get its day in the sun.

But every show is a learning experience, and with shows happening every Monday at the Jericho Tavern, any minor wrinkles are sure to be quickly smoothed. Do come prepared to contribute and play in the space - an improv show can live or die on whether its audience is along for the ride, and this was a phenomenal crowd (huge respect to the audience member who responded to the prompt “a relationship between two people” with “abbess and nun”, and when asked to clarify what that dynamic was, simply responded, “oh, power.” I want to know your story, stranger). An Imps show is always friendly, always accessible and never the same twice, and it’s lovely to feel like you’ve contributed to something unique in a small way. Be sure to catch the next one.