Improv Comedy Club, Shows, Classes and Workshops. Website designed by Steve Roe © Hoopla Improv 2012. Sitemap
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Hoopla Impro Newsletter
Hoopla offer one of the most fun and friendly places to learn and play with improv in the UK, with flexible improv comedy classes and workshops across London and the UK. You don’t need any drama, acting, comedy or improv experience whatsoever. You don’t have to be fast, clever, or funny either. Many of our workshops are drop-in, so just pick one you like and turn up.
Improv Comedy Classes
EVERY MONDAY IMPROV CLASS
Different core improv skill each week.
Drop-In , 7pm-9:30pm, £10, The Rag Factory, 16-18 Heneage Street, off Brick Lane, London,
E1 5LJ.
Drop-
E1 5LJ.
EVERY THURSDAY IMPROV WORKSHOP
Various improv games, themes and exercises.
Drop-In Workshop.
7:30pm-10pm, £10, St. Mary’s Hall, 218a Balham High Road, Balham, London, SW12 9BS.
Drop-
7:30pm-
EVERY SATURDAY IMPROV CLASS
Specialist topics in greater depth.
Drop-In , 11am-5pm, £20, The Tavistock Room, 2nd Floor, The Bedford, 77 Bedford Hill, Balham, London, SW12 9HD.
Drop-
Additional Classes Around The UK
In addition to our London classes we’re also currently booking in clases outside London to help grow the impro scene nationwide.
Steve Roe is the co-founder of Hoopla and has been teaching improv for over six years. He teaches improvisation to adults every Monday, Thursday and Saturday in London, and Sundays across the UK. He has experience of teaching beginners, experienced improvisers, stand up comics, drama school students and professional actors.
He has also taught improvisation to students at Imperial College London, South East Essex College, and various Secondary Schools and Primary Schools. He has taught improvisation to corporate clients including Ignite, Objective, and ITV. Steve has also worked extensively in Television Production for BBC, ITV and Channel 4.
In 2010 Steve founded the UK’s first improvised comedy club at The Miller in London Bridge, creating a vibrant community of performers and a large repeat audience. He now books, produces and promotes improvised comedy shows every Tuesday and Wednesday in collaboration with Jon Monkhouse from LondonImprov.co.uk.
Steve has studied improv with Keith Johnstone, Patti Styles, John Cremer and Katy Schutte from The Maydays, Allan Marriott and Dylan Emery from Crunchy Frog, Shawn Kinley from Loose Moose, Kevin Tomlinson, Sprout Ideas, Rob Broderick, The Penny Dreadfuls, Random Acts, Jonathan Kay, Jay Rhoderick from The Upright Citizens Brigade, Adam Oliver, Act Up, and The Chicago Improv Associates, .
Steve currently directs Arthur and Imagine If You Will, and performs and produces Music Box the Improvised Musical (5 Stars – Fringe Guru, 5 Stars – Remote Goat). He has previously performed with The Maydays (5 Stars – Three Weeks) and various other shows across the UK’s improv scene. He continues to support countless other shows that have popped up from Hoopla workshops.
Steve also loves The Muppet Show, mountain biking and beans on toast.
He has also taught improvisation to students at Imperial College London, South East Essex College, and various Secondary Schools and Primary Schools. He has taught improvisation to corporate clients including Ignite, Objective, and ITV. Steve has also worked extensively in Television Production for BBC, ITV and Channel 4.
In 2010 Steve founded the UK’s first improvised comedy club at The Miller in London Bridge, creating a vibrant community of performers and a large repeat audience. He now books, produces and promotes improvised comedy shows every Tuesday and Wednesday in collaboration with Jon Monkhouse from LondonImprov.co.uk.
Steve has studied improv with Keith Johnstone, Patti Styles, John Cremer and Katy Schutte from The Maydays, Allan Marriott and Dylan Emery from Crunchy Frog, Shawn Kinley from Loose Moose, Kevin Tomlinson, Sprout Ideas, Rob Broderick, The Penny Dreadfuls, Random Acts, Jonathan Kay, Jay Rhoderick from The Upright Citizens Brigade, Adam Oliver, Act Up, and The Chicago Improv Associates, .
Steve currently directs Arthur and Imagine If You Will, and performs and produces Music Box the Improvised Musical (5 Stars – Fringe Guru, 5 Stars – Remote Goat). He has previously performed with The Maydays (5 Stars – Three Weeks) and various other shows across the UK’s improv scene. He continues to support countless other shows that have popped up from Hoopla workshops.
Steve also loves The Muppet Show, mountain biking and beans on toast.
Teacher: Steve Roe from Hoopla
Edgar is the co-founder of Hoopla and has also been teaching improv for over six years. He teaches every Thursday in London and also at various other Hoopla workshops.
Edgar has trained in impro with Keith Johnstone, Patti Styles, John Cremer from The Maydays, Jonathan Kay, Kevin Tomlinson, Rob Broderick, The Penny Dreadfuls, Alan Marriott and Dylan Emery from The Crunchy Frog Collective, and Sprout Ideas.
Edgar has performed and directed in various improv shows across the live London impro scene and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
He’s been teaching the Thursday drop-in workshops and directing and performing with Hoopla for over 6 years. He’s a big fan of keeping impro simple, uncomplicated, non-intellectual, and getting it back to the core of what’s important.
He’s also taught impro to various Primary Schools, Secondary Schools and Colleges.
Edgar also DJs at the weekend and is training to be a solicitor. He loves fried chicken.
Edgar has trained in impro with Keith Johnstone, Patti Styles, John Cremer from The Maydays, Jonathan Kay, Kevin Tomlinson, Rob Broderick, The Penny Dreadfuls, Alan Marriott and Dylan Emery from The Crunchy Frog Collective, and Sprout Ideas.
Edgar has performed and directed in various improv shows across the live London impro scene and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
He’s been teaching the Thursday drop-
He’s also taught impro to various Primary Schools, Secondary Schools and Colleges.
Edgar also DJs at the weekend and is training to be a solicitor. He loves fried chicken.
Teacher: Edgar Fernando from Hoopla
Scenes Scenes Scenes
Hoopla have taken six years of experience of teaching improv for scenes and sketches, and adapted it to this tailor made impro class just for stand-ups.
Impro for Stand-Ups
Long-form done Hoopla style! New workshop due to popular demand. The emphasis will be on making long-form as fun and playful as possible. Pre-bookable.
Long-Form Improv
Impro is based upon people being present and spontaneous in the moment, listening to each other, saying yes, and adding to each other’s ideas.
Improvisers don’t have to be individually clever, fast or funny. Impro is more about collaboratively working and playing together to build a greater whole.
From these foundations improvisers work together to create exciting and captivating scenes, sketches and stories.
>> More about improv
Improvisers don’t have to be individually clever, fast or funny. Impro is more about collaboratively working and playing together to build a greater whole.
From these foundations improvisers work together to create exciting and captivating scenes, sketches and stories.
>> More about improv
About Improv
Our Drop-In Improv Classes
Drop-in. No need to book, just turn up.
Our workshops are incredibly fun and enjoyable. We create a really safe, trusting, supportive and playful atmosphere and there is a lot of laughter released in the room!
At our Monday and Thursday improv workshops we concentrate on core impro skills like listening, saying yes, commitment and being obvious. We start with some friendly warm ups, then do some fun exercises on some of the core skills before using them to play with improvising some scenes together. On Mondays we pre-decide the topics, on Thursdays we play more and go with the flow and needs of the room.
On Saturdays we teach various specialist improv topics like narrative, character, mask, objectives and commedia dell’arte. We go into greater depth with an entire day devoted to playing with impro. We start with some warm ups and exercises on the core improv skills, and then introduce the specialist topic for the rest of the day.
Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays are all drop-in workshops. No need to book, just turn up. This flexible approach allows you to go to workshops whenever you want, fitting them around other commitments without having to pay anything in advance.
Our workshops are incredibly fun and enjoyable. We create a really safe, trusting, supportive and playful atmosphere and there is a lot of laughter released in the room!
At our Monday and Thursday improv workshops we concentrate on core impro skills like listening, saying yes, commitment and being obvious. We start with some friendly warm ups, then do some fun exercises on some of the core skills before using them to play with improvising some scenes together. On Mondays we pre-
On Saturdays we teach various specialist improv topics like narrative, character, mask, objectives and commedia dell’arte. We go into greater depth with an entire day devoted to playing with impro. We start with some warm ups and exercises on the core improv skills, and then introduce the specialist topic for the rest of the day.
Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays are all drop-
Suitable for Everyone
These workshops are open to all, whether you can make it every week or once every couple of months you are very welcome.
We get people from all backgrounds as it's a great place to relax after work and do all the fun bits of drama and impro without the commitment of regular rehearsals or learning lines. It’s a great introduction to the world of impro, comedy and drama.
Our drop-in workshops are suitable for everyone from beginners to experienced improvisers, as we fluidly adapt the workshop each session to feel of the room.
Our workshops are open to everyone, from all backgrounds. You don’t need any drama, acting, comedy or impro experience whatsoever. You don’t have to be clever, fast or funny.
We get people from all backgrounds as it's a great place to relax after work and do all the fun bits of drama and impro without the commitment of regular rehearsals or learning lines. It’s a great introduction to the world of impro, comedy and drama.
Our drop-
Our workshops are open to everyone, from all backgrounds. You don’t need any drama, acting, comedy or impro experience whatsoever. You don’t have to be clever, fast or funny.
Our Pre-Bookable Classes
We also offer additional pre-bookable classes on Sundays on topics including Impro for Stand-Ups , Performance Training, Scenes Scenes Scenes and Long-Form.
These have been made pre-bookable in order to guarantee smaller classes for these popular topics. The price is still the same as our other one day workshops.
These have been made pre-
Q. What’s the difference between Monday, Thursday and Saturday workshops?
A. Mondays we cover pre-arranged core improv skills, and we already know which topic we are going to teach. Saturdays we go into a specialist topic in greater depth, for longer, and we already know which topic we are going to teach. Thursdays we don’t have a pre-conceived idea of what we’re going to cover, we just react to the group and what it needs in the evening, and usually do some core improv skills and fun stuff.
Q. Why are many of your classes drop-ins?
A. We’ve popped up over the years as mainly working on drop-in, and that’s our thing. We have now also started doing some additional pre-bookable workshops too, so the option is there. While it is good to work with the same people we also think it’s healthy to work with different people from various backgrounds, as that reflects the rapidly changing world of performing improv. This also means we can offer flexible workshops that people can fit around other performing, work and play commitments. It also enables people to get regular practice in, when they want it.
Q. Why don’t you do levels?
A. Again we’ve popped up as the non-level alternative. We believe that it doesn’t matter what you’ve done before, people can all work and have fun together. Beginners can benefit from being supported by experienced people, and experienced performers can benefit from learning to support others and make the other performer look good. No matter how far you ‘progress’ in improv we feel it’s essential to keep practicing the core skills, which is why all our workshops are open to everyone.
Q. How many people turn up?
A. This varies from class to class. The average for Saturdays is about 10-12, the average for Thursdays about 12-16, the average for Mondays 10-12. This does vary over the year, sometimes it’s less, sometimes it’s more.
Q. What if nobody turns up?
A. That hasn’t happened yet. Even if the numbers of people are low we still run the class and have fun, even if we’re running at a loss, as it balances out in the long run and you’ve still made the effort to make it to a class, which we really respect. If nobody turned up at all, we’d just go to the pub, which is also time well spent in my opinion.
Q. What if too many people turn up?
A. We’d still run a session, we ideally then try and have two separate teachers and make use of the two room option all our venues have, so that you get lots of practice. If it ever got to the point where people’s stage time was suffering we’d charge a discounted rate. This doesn’t usually happen though.
Q. Who teaches the classes?
A. Steve Roe or Edgar Fernando teach Thursday workshops. Steve Roe teaches all Monday and Saturday workshops, and the pre-bookable classes. We also have occasional guest teachers on additional days.
Q. Is it the same people turning up each week?
A. It varies. Some people come every week, some once a month, some once in a year. It’s not the same group every week.
Q. What kind of people turn up?
A. All manner of backgrounds, all ages and all levels of performing experience. We get everyone from never been on a stage before to professional actors and comedians. They are all welcome and we’ve found having a mixed group like this is what makes Hoopla so much fun.
Q. I’ve never done any acting or comedy before, is that ok?
A. Yes, that’s definitely OK. Our classes are really suited to people who haven’t had any experience before and you’ll be enjoying it in no time.
Q. What class is best of me if I haven’t done anything before?
A. All classes and workshops are open to everyone. Mondays and Thursdays tend to concentrate on the core skills so a bunch of those and you’ll be sorted. The Saturday workshops tend to be a specialist topic in greater depth, but the workshops are so long that even if you haven’t done much before you’ll be getting it in no time.
Q. I’m shy and quiet, is that ok?
A. Yes, that’s definitely OK. You’d be surprised how many people got involved in this kind of thing for the same reason, us included. If you’re feeling shy and quiet at one of our workshops, you can be a shy and quiet character. You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be.
Q. Why are there different prices?
A. Due to different length of workshops. We aim for a standard price of £10 for an evening workshops and £20 for the full day.
Q. How do I get to perform?
A. Please see Performance Opportunities.
Q. Is it quite sociable?
A. Yes, improv is probably the most sociable hobby going. We usually stay for a drink after all our workshops, conveniently located near pubs, and The Miller is also a great place to hang out after shows. There’s a massive and rapidly growing scene to get involved in.
Q. What do you actually do in the classes?
It depends on the day and theme, but in general it goes - brief chat from us, get to know you, physical warm ups, exercises and games, playing with it. Lots of different and fun drama and improv games basically.
A. Mondays we cover pre-
Q. Why are many of your classes drop-
A. We’ve popped up over the years as mainly working on drop-
Q. Why don’t you do levels?
A. Again we’ve popped up as the non-
Q. How many people turn up?
A. This varies from class to class. The average for Saturdays is about 10-
Q. What if nobody turns up?
A. That hasn’t happened yet. Even if the numbers of people are low we still run the class and have fun, even if we’re running at a loss, as it balances out in the long run and you’ve still made the effort to make it to a class, which we really respect. If nobody turned up at all, we’d just go to the pub, which is also time well spent in my opinion.
Q. What if too many people turn up?
A. We’d still run a session, we ideally then try and have two separate teachers and make use of the two room option all our venues have, so that you get lots of practice. If it ever got to the point where people’s stage time was suffering we’d charge a discounted rate. This doesn’t usually happen though.
Q. Who teaches the classes?
A. Steve Roe or Edgar Fernando teach Thursday workshops. Steve Roe teaches all Monday and Saturday workshops, and the pre-
Q. Is it the same people turning up each week?
A. It varies. Some people come every week, some once a month, some once in a year. It’s not the same group every week.
Q. What kind of people turn up?
A. All manner of backgrounds, all ages and all levels of performing experience. We get everyone from never been on a stage before to professional actors and comedians. They are all welcome and we’ve found having a mixed group like this is what makes Hoopla so much fun.
Q. I’ve never done any acting or comedy before, is that ok?
A. Yes, that’s definitely OK. Our classes are really suited to people who haven’t had any experience before and you’ll be enjoying it in no time.
Q. What class is best of me if I haven’t done anything before?
A. All classes and workshops are open to everyone. Mondays and Thursdays tend to concentrate on the core skills so a bunch of those and you’ll be sorted. The Saturday workshops tend to be a specialist topic in greater depth, but the workshops are so long that even if you haven’t done much before you’ll be getting it in no time.
Q. I’m shy and quiet, is that ok?
A. Yes, that’s definitely OK. You’d be surprised how many people got involved in this kind of thing for the same reason, us included. If you’re feeling shy and quiet at one of our workshops, you can be a shy and quiet character. You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be.
Q. Why are there different prices?
A. Due to different length of workshops. We aim for a standard price of £10 for an evening workshops and £20 for the full day.
Q. How do I get to perform?
A. Please see Performance Opportunities.
Q. Is it quite sociable?
A. Yes, improv is probably the most sociable hobby going. We usually stay for a drink after all our workshops, conveniently located near pubs, and The Miller is also a great place to hang out after shows. There’s a massive and rapidly growing scene to get involved in.
Q. What do you actually do in the classes?
It depends on the day and theme, but in general it goes -
FAQs
People from Hoopla workshops have gone on to perform with loads of groups across the UK improv scene including Music Box, Arthur, Imagine If You Will, Improperly, The Maydays, Shotgun, The Inflatables, The Oxford Imps, Hoopla, Fingers on Buzzards, Fat Kitten, Friendly Fire, My Show My Rules, 8bit, The Ministry, Iron Actor, The Faux Pas, Do Not Adjust Your Stage, Fun Stuff, Curt Hatred, Improv Film Challenge, The Couch, Indoor Fireworks and loads more.
Hoopla are passionate about supporting performers, and we are constantly connecting improvisers to groups and helping to grow the flourishing UK impro scene.
Many shows and groups have formed from people meeting at workshops, chatting together in the bar afterwards, or hanging out at The Miller.
Hoopla host regular free improv networking events to connect people together and help improvisers meet people with similar interests and possibly form new shows.
Hoopla also regularly cast and direct shows, with all details appearing at performance opportunities.
Steve from Hoopla also programmes Tuesdays at The Miller in London Bridge, in collaboration with Jonathan Monkhouse from LondonImprov.co.uk who programmes Wednesdays at The Miller. This has become the UK’s first ever improvised comedy club.
Shows produced or directed by Hoopla have received 5 star reviews from Fringe Guru, The Edinburgh Guide and Three Weeks at The Edinburgh Fringe, Brighton Fringe and various London venues.
You don’t have to be interested in performing to do any of our workshops though.
>> Performance Opportunities
Hoopla are passionate about supporting performers, and we are constantly connecting improvisers to groups and helping to grow the flourishing UK impro scene.
Many shows and groups have formed from people meeting at workshops, chatting together in the bar afterwards, or hanging out at The Miller.
Hoopla host regular free improv networking events to connect people together and help improvisers meet people with similar interests and possibly form new shows.
Hoopla also regularly cast and direct shows, with all details appearing at performance opportunities.
Steve from Hoopla also programmes Tuesdays at The Miller in London Bridge, in collaboration with Jonathan Monkhouse from LondonImprov.co.uk who programmes Wednesdays at The Miller. This has become the UK’s first ever improvised comedy club.
Shows produced or directed by Hoopla have received 5 star reviews from Fringe Guru, The Edinburgh Guide and Three Weeks at The Edinburgh Fringe, Brighton Fringe and various London venues.
You don’t have to be interested in performing to do any of our workshops though.
>> Performance Opportunities
Hoopla - Supporting Performers
Topics
Topics vary from workshop to workshop, regular topics include:
Core Improv, Games, Scenes, Narrative, Longform, Character, Game of the Scene, Solo Improvisation, Status, Commedia dell’Arte, Mask, Platforms, Listening, Being Obvious, Accents & Impressions, Clown,
Spontaneity, Yes And, Performing Improv, Hero’s Journey, Genres, Commitment and many more.
Core Improv, Games, Scenes, Narrative, Longform, Character, Game of the Scene, Solo Improvisation, Status, Commedia dell’Arte, Mask, Platforms, Listening, Being Obvious, Accents & Impressions, Clown,
Spontaneity, Yes And, Performing Improv, Hero’s Journey, Genres, Commitment and many more.
