History Just under a year ago I was at the Edinburgh Fringe, in a youth hostel, not performing but phoning up loads of impro groups I knew to book them in to The Black Horse. I’d just got to the point where I’d booked them all in, and put all the details on the website,[…]
Two New Character Exercises I led a one day character workshop on Saturday and came up with two new character exercises that might be helpful for anyone out there running similar things. Here they are…. That’s Great, New Character Two actors – A and B. A starts talking about a topic from their real life[…]
Fringe Recommendations Remember I’m totally biased towards improv and sketch comedy, as I don’t know an awful lot about stand up, children’s shows, dance or plays. Some of them are also booked to play at The Miller on our Tuesday night shows, so I’m bound to think they’re good. Also this just based on my[…]
There’s only one way of improv, and that’s your own Sometimes I feel like this blog is just a record of me realising majorly obvious things that everyone else has known for ages. Anyway, here it goes, what I’ve been thinking about this week is…… There is no absolute correct method to improv, or comedy,[…]
Such a great night at The Miller last night I felt inspired to write about it. We had a first half of Cariad Lloyd and Paul Foxcroft doing impro together, with support from band The Glue Ensemble. I’m not exaggerating when I say it was probably one of the best impro shows I’ve ever seen.[…]
Wildheart Gathering Just spent the weekend with Music Box at The Wildheart Gathering (www.wildheartgathering.com) in Sussex. Many thanks to Adam Oliver for inviting us, making us feel so welcome, and for doing such a great job of hosting the cabaret stage all weekend. Especially for being so patient when we were late arriving, had more[…]
Arrogance I’m so arrogant. I caught myself the last couple of shows saying lines and then thinking “that was much funnier than the audience implied”. What an arrogant sod. Dylan Emery, if you’re out there, I need you to shout at me please. I’m coming to the Crunchy Frog like a broken car rolling into[…]
I used to think that new performers had to learn how to make people laugh. And quite often this is what they think too. However I’ve changed my mind about this recently. I think the actual core problem isn’t ‘making’ people laugh, it’s ‘letting’ people laugh. Comedy performers are not scared of NOT getting laughs,[…]
Earwig Blogs seem to mainly happen after Shotgun shows and two pints of Becks, so here it is. Fun Shotgun show this evening, especially the second half which is the open scenes bit. I played an Earwig that had been recruited by the MI5 as a spy and blown up to human proportions, particularly proud[…]
This blog post is from 2011 or earlier and is now totally out of date! We’ve kept it here for a bit of history. Lots of performers have been asking me so I thought I’d put some details here to help explain. The Miller Tuesdays and Wednesdays is now going to be joint run between[…]
Shared Style and Group Mind Hello, Improviser Stephen Laurence Roe here, currently reporting from my bedroom. Currently the actions that are happening and the things I’m learning have accelerated faster than my ability to keep track of them or write them down. Sorry if I haven’t replied to your email in three weeks/months. And yes[…]
Why I love London Not really about impro, but I’ve got to get to Morden each night and it’s soooo far away on the end of the Northern line that I have to type something to keep me occupied. So reasons why I love London: 1. It’s slightly rubbish. It’s grubby and there are some[…]