In the black box of the BATS Stage the genre-cum-mood is set with a massive spider in its web and a creepy tombstone with skull embedded. Even the waiting keyboard looks ominous with all those white ‘teeth’. Songs From A Spellbound City is an improv format created by Brenna Dixon, and produced and directed by Austin Harrison with The Pāua Ballads.

This second night of the season, Bethany Miller, clad in a black sheath frock, adopts a seductively spooky tone to welcome us from a warm Wellington day into this cold Wellington night. To warm up the muso accomplices – Lia Kelly on keys; Beans Wright on violin – she asks us for a feeling, an emotion and a stationery item. Our offers of embarrassment and love are beautifully evoked by Wright and Kelly hammers home the stapler.

Tonight’s other improvisers – Matt Hutton, Ian Harcourt, Jeremy Palmer, Wiremu Tuhiwai and Austin Harrison* – lurk eerily in the gloom as we respond to the next request, for typical topics of discussion at home of an evening. Our offers include: We really should redecorate this room; Favourite movies; It’s time to do our Taxes; Have you put out the rubbish? Jetstar v Air NZ …

The format involves one player stepping forward to establish a scene – e.g. “Two Demons (Harcourt & Palmer) at Wellington Airport discuss their favourite movies” – and other players step up to make it happen. Discussions segue into songs – e.g. a Back to the Future v Mary Poppins debate prompts a song that ends with, “Now I know the reason why / You’re in love with Marty Fly.”

What follows proves that The Pāua Ballads are a seasoned troupe at the top of their game. Given no performance will be the same, all I can do is indicate how creative they are with brief descriptions of what they conjure this time round.

When three Angels (Miller, Tuhiwai & Harrison) browse an Op Shop for decorations to renovate their home, a halo mirror leads to one seeing their own face reflected in the floor and feeling broken inside. The song helps us feel their pain.

The Grim Reaper (Harcourt) finds a Leprechaun (Hutton) stealing stuff in a Community centre, a dodgy deal is done and we witness the death of Death.

A player (Tuhiwai) gets stranded at work at 4.45pm having to deal with a client’s urgent tax return. He’s left alone to generate the scene – which he does splendidly despite his plaintive cry, “Why and I talking to myself?”

When two Dragons (Harcourt & Palmer?) at a laundromat discuss the merits of Jetstar v Air NZ, one is horrified that the other plans to fly to Spain by plane! “That’s not what dragons do!” They realise, in song, there’s a market niche for them to fly people to small towns like Taupo and Picton. Some in the audience applaud that idea.

At the Botanical Gardens, a Shapeshifter (Hutton) and Vampire (Miller) discuss why they love each other. Their names are revealed as Slippery Steve and Velveteen, with the latter preferring the former in his worm-like state. As a portrait of co-dependency, it is disturbing.

Two Zombies (Harrison & Tuhiwai?) at Briscoes discuss midnight snacks. Finding Air Fryers on special sends them into Zombie bliss until one reveals himself to be Death (which I guess is a threat to the undead).

Two Giants (Harcourt & Miller) at Bunnings talk about taking out the rubbish, play with tiny wheelbarrow and under-sink bins … When she expects him to be the one to take out the rubbish, a song evolves about gender stereotyping being a Giant problem. “A Giant step” gets a witty mention too.

Five adolescent Pixies run amok at Te Papa breaks the studied but focused and absorbing dynamic. But the action too chaotic to gel, so Harrison proclaims Two Orcs at a factory (I don’t recall their topic) and Palmer and Hutton step up. It’s a tragi-comic scenario, with Palmer using a lever to press something into position and Hutton completing the job with a headbutt. Having established their friendship is crucial to their survival in a tedious job, they face a dilemma: M’s need to earn a wage to feed his family versus H’s need to alleviate his terrible headache. They resolve it, for the moment, by swapping places.

The ensemble’s final improvised song sees each sum up their key takeaway with a phrase that melds into a melodious medley, earning hearty applause from the audience.

Yet again, the spontaneous alchemy of improv has kept us all spellbound.

*Others likely to appear in the lineup are Maria Williams and Malcom Morrison.

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