You provide the idea, they supply the laughs

It's the show you can help write – and if your suggestions are any good, the cast of Whose Line Is It Anyway? will act them out on stage.

Put James Bond in a convent, for instance, and Steve Steen and Ian Coppinger go through an elaborate routine about a spy seeking shelter with the sisters. Another skit about adult film stars at Buckingham Palace rolls along for a fair bit before being derailed (like the British monarchy so often looks set to do) at the mention of Prince Charles.

The stage show, which served as inspiration for the hit nineties teleseries, has been playing across the UAE this month, with two final shows in Dubai this weekend.

For those new to the format, it really is little more than a string of extemporaneous performances, with setting, characters, props and key dialogue points shouted out by the audience. The tradition itself goes back to Italian Comedia dell'arte street performers in the 1500s, and improv is now heavily used in acting training and rehearsal.

Stephen Frost – everyone recognises him by his bushy eyebrows – explains all this to at the start, and the first half clips along rapidly as the team acts out scenes involving all manner of imaginary props.

One classic is a piece where Steve Steen leaves the auditorium while Frost and his crew collude with the audience to come up with a bizarre profession that Steen must guess when he returns. A Dubai newspaper censor, shouts one brave soul. "Don't be ridiculous," replies Frost. "There's no such thing." Obviously, the cast is careful not to offend (a joke about four Arabs in an American diner, for instance, ends at the first line – "I'll have a sheikh"), but this hardly diminishes the impact of the performance.

Steen eventually finds out he's the man who breaks biscuits, with a midget and wearing rubber gloves, before putting them in jelly containers!

During the 15-minute interval, the audience is encouraged to write suggestions on a piece of paper and drop them into a bowl on stage. Performers pick these out at random during the second half and act them out. So not only does the audience truly become a part of this set-piece, but each night is totally different.

Where the live show loses out to its TV sibling is in the lack of an adjudicator or host – some scenes do drag on a bit, before one of the performers realises this and calls a halt. Despite that, though, anything that keeps you laughing for over two hours in these bleak times is worth the door charge.

Keep up with the latest business news from the region with the daily Emirates Business 24|7 newsletter. To subscribe to the newsletter, please click here

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.