A curmudgeon I feel for saying so, but my visit to the Burton Taylor Theatre was quite spoilt by a less than adequate audience. Whooping and shrieking at the merest whiff of humour this youthful and utterly partisan group certainly propelled the hour-long performance of The ImProfessors, by the Oxford Impro group but made it almost impossible for the rest of us to appreciate it beyond the level of a fringe event. Maybe that is just fine because this show was one of the events held as part of the inaugural Fringe Festival running alongside the Oxford Literary Festival.

Hosted by two breezy comperes, the eight-strong group presented a series of improvised lectures' by the self-styled ImProfessors based on suggestions from the audience. Pairings, groupings and solo speeches tackled a myriad of subjects ranging from the discovery of DNA to the ludicrous self-cleaning rat cage. These allowed the group to reveal their quick thinking, some overt acting skills but regrettably rather too much braggodocio. Yes, it was all quite inventive, it was all quite fun and it was all quite amusing but only to the point of smiling rather than laughing.

The group of undoubtedly talented actors were clearly brimming with enthusiasm in their desire to share with us the delights of improvisation and to bring to the stage the unpredictable, the spontaneous, the uncertain. Which is all the more disappointing that it really felt none of those things. For improvisation, by it's own very limited construct always delivers what it claims to and therein lies one of two difficulties with it - that despite its own smug claims at risk and excitement it is utterly predictable. The other? Well it all looks just a bit too easy.

Of course it is not, as the hesitations and wide-eyed instances of drying up showed. Those moments were engaging and drew empathy and a sense of relief that it was not us up there. But I want a little bit of magic and am not satisfied theatrically or creatively by the mere revelation of the nuts and bolts of the practice. I take it for granted that they are there but in themselves they are just not that interesting.

Apparently a powerful teaching tool that is used by the group as a confidence builder for organisations such as The Princes Trust, they are to be commended for that work. As a piece of theatre, though, this was an enjoyable but insubstantial romp, a party game but not much more than that.