character course
Expand your character range and go beyond your default characters.
We all have certain characters that we go to in improv, from naturalistic to larger than life. We will be providing fun energetic exercises and helpful feedback to help you to get out of your comfort zone and find new ways of improvising characters and expand your character range.
We will be teaching a variety of great tools to help find characters in improv including animal work, emotions, status, vocal choices, Laban, levels, tempo, twinning, gibberish, atmospheres, gravities and centres.
We’ll be putting this all together to improvise fun yet believable characters that have depth, as even the weirdest of characters have feelings too!
We’ll then be looking at how to hold your character with relationships in longer scenes as they are put into various situations with lots and lots of scene and character practice.
Most of all it’s going to be LOADS of fun with a fun and energetic teaching style.
This course is suitable for people with previous experience. If you are totally new to improv it would be best to start with our beginners improv course and do at least levels 1-3 first.
next available dates:
Dates: Every Thursday for 8 weeks from Thursday 8th October 2026, plus show on Monday 30th November 2026. SOLD OUT, join waiting list
Time: 7pm – 9pm each week.
Teacher: Susan Harrison (6 weeks) and guest teachers (2 weeks).
Price: £255. Either payable all at once or £120 at time of booking and £135 when the course starts.
Venue: Lift Islington, 45 White Lion Street, London, N1 9PW.
Tube: Angel.
This course is suitable for people with previous experience. If you are totally new to improv it would be best to start with our beginners improv course and do at least levels 1-3 first.
Susan Harrison
Sue performs with the Olivier award winning Showstoppers The Improvised Muscial, performing in the West End, Edinburgh Fringe and national tours.
She was a series regular for series 1 and 2 of the BAFTA nominated CBBC sketch show Definitely Not Newsround (for which she wrote her own characters) and was a series regular for series 2 and 3 of BAFTA nominated sketch show Class Dismissed, also for CBBC.
Sue has taken four character shows to the Edinburgh Fringe, one of which “Creatures” won a ThreeWeeks Editor’s Choice Award. Her numerous characters include an elderly mermaid, a folk singing Tony Blair, Andy Warhol in a giant can of soup and a horse who has had plastic surgery to become a unicorn.
She also performs with two-prov group BEINGS and guests with GTI, The Playground and The Actors Nightmare as well as hosting her own character cabaret night.
Sue has a podcast with fellow comedian Gemma Arrowsmith hosted by The British Comedy Guide.
“First class comic acting” (The Guardian)
“A Perfomer with depth and range; able to read the audience with the precision of an old hand…a fantastic character comedian” (Chortle)
She trained at The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
faqs
Who is this suitable for?
People who have done some improv before and want to explore characters in more detail.
How much improv or acting should I have done before doing this course?
At least our level 1 -3 courses or a similar amount of improv somewhere else. This course is not suitable for people totally new to improv or acting.
What comes after this course?
We have a variety of other advanced improv courses that would be suitable with themes like Story, Musicals, Harold, Super Short-Form and more.
What’s the class size?
Maximum of 16 people, average of 12-14 people.
Is there an end of course show?
Yes there is on the 8 week versions of the course but not on the 6 week version of the course as there wasn't enough time to do the show before the Christmas break.
Can I transfer to this course from a different course?
Yes. We don't have the tech on our website for you to do this automatically, but email [email protected] if you would like to do this and we will move your booking and payment over and refund you any difference.
What if I’m running late?
We’ll be starting each session at 7pm. This is an advanced course and we’re trying to form a team, so please don’t book this course if you are likely to be late on a regular basis.