STAGE REVIEW : Mirthful Evening of Improv : The Village Idiots get the audience involved in a brisk and unpredictable show at the West End Playhouse.

Even if the improv you’re watching is second-string material, it can still be a mirthful evening. The Village Idiots, a youthful, ebullient 10-member ensemble at the West End Playhouse in Van Nuys, may not be the Groundlings or Second City, but their new show satisfies two of the basic tenets of improv: It’s brisk and it’s unpredictable.

In what may not be the best omen, the Village Idiots’ freshest execution and ideas happen to fall right at the top of their affable production, “Night of the Living Idiots.” The show is the group’s first West End caper since its “Pandora’s Box of Family Values” staged at the same theater last summer.

During the curtain-raiser, performer Stanley Sheff reads headlines from the tabloid newspaper The Star, and the audience chooses the headline for the company to improvise. This audience was no slouch, demanding the actors uncork a story combining two headlines. The result was unsparing satire of tabloid journalism.

Comparatively, the 13 five-to seven-minute sketches that follow are largely derivative of tried-and-true improv scenes--including, on this night, a Japanese samurai movie and another number, “The First Date,” in which a patron made the inane suggestion that the date unfold in a supermarket.

Actors Jay Jay Berrera and Diana Holdridge played the grocery-basket angle fine, but inexplicably and fatally ignored the nervousness attendant on a first date, which shot down the effort, turning it merely into two characters shopping.

Actually, about half the 14 improvs--several heavily indebted to the legendary theater games of improv guru Viola Spolin--were either too flat, loud or uninspired. On the other hand, the crowd genuinely seemed to enjoy almost everything.

One of the more successful numbers, “Literary Corner,” found five members creating a novel in the alternate styles of Louis L’Amour, Shakespeare and Danielle Steele.

The Village Idiots improv, while tied to audience participation, also offers a safety net, grounded as it is in set scenic formats, such as “Freeze Tag,” and sketches employing various emotions and physical positions, in which spectators call the final variations.

Evolving out of a workshop founded last year by Artistic Director Bill Ackerman, the Idiots (who originally performed at the Annex of the Improv in West Hollywood) rarely make the mistake of letting a number go on too long.

Cheerfully hosted by Ackerman (who also performs) and generally led by such players as Robert Morgan Fisher and Steve Peterson, these voices are a promising comedic diversion, especially for theatergoers who haven’t seen much improvisation before.

Where and When What: “Night of the Living Idiots” at the West End Playhouse, 7446 Van Nuys Blvd., Van Nuys. Hours: 8:30 p.m. Saturdays, indefinitely. Length: 1 hour, 20 minutes. Price: $4.99. Call: (818) 786-5946.