Best Impro is in Workshops The best impro I see is consistently in workshops. It’s hilarious, touching, unexpected and captivating. Not sure why that is, what happens when people get on stage in front of an audience? Why does something go? Or is it just the way shows are put together and introduced to the[…]
Things they don’t put in business books Britishness In Comedy The London Impro Theatre plans are coming along nicely. At first I was thinking of suggesting some kind of Second City style, but then actually I back tracked a bit on this and thought a kind of corporate impro/comedy land arriving slap bang in the[…]
Acting’s First Purpose? Commedia I’m currently reading “Commedia dell’Arte, An Actor’s Handbook” by John Rudlin in preparation for one of my Saturday workshops and I’m finding it really interesting. What’s really exciting about the book is that it contains more of a call to action to actually just get up and do things than most[…]
Carny Life I’ve just finished a great book called ‘Memoirs of a Sword Swallower’ by Daniel P Mannix about the true stories a sword swallower touring with a sideshow/freakshow in a carnival around America back in the day. Really excellent. Here’s the closing conversation between him and the Fat Lady (Jolly Daisy) at the end[…]
Variety, Casting, Negativity Another busy couple of weeks. One Friday we performed with Music Box as part of Theatre Delicatessen’s Theatre Souk – an entire abandoned office turned into a variety of performance spaces where the audience pay to see each show. Next Friday was Hoopla and The Scat Pack at The Nursery Festival –[…]
Stand Up For The First Time Stand up for the first time. Last night at The Miller. 20 people doing stand up for the first time or almost first time, including me. I don’t quite know where to start with this one. It was completely mental. Apparently also I was completely mental, although actually I[…]
Buzz Bit of a buzz at The Miller last night. We had a full venue, a chap coming all the way from Wales to see the show, and the one and only Tim Sniffen from Baby Wants Candy in the audience and Jules from The Nursery. Well done Marbles (Dave Waller & Ryan Millar) and[…]
Three Shows in Three Days I’ve just had the good fortune of performing in three completely different shows in three days, featuring four different groups. A couple of years ago performing in three shows would have taken about 4 months, and performing in completely different shows wouldn’t have happened at all, so I feel very[…]
Flyering in Earl’s Court I was under the impression that everyone in England was doing impro at the moment, and that everyone had a show to sell. I was even under the impression that most of the UK were in an improvised musical. After spending the morning flyering for Music Box at Earl’s Court station[…]
Fingers on Buzzards It was the first night at The Miller last night and it opened with Fingers on Buzzards – it was so awesome! For a start the bar staff are really friendly and helpful and very encouraging of what we’re doing there. There are now posters and flyers all over the place and[…]
Lots of stuff happening at once Hello, Lot’s of things going on at the same time at the moment which is very exciting. We’ve got the shows at The Miller starting tomorrow with Fingers on Buzzards, and then we also have The Maydays performing with us next Tuesday which is awesome. I currently have two[…]
First Thursday in new venue That was awesome! We had our first Thursday workshop in the new venue last night and it went really well. Thanks to everyone for coming and making it special. It was great to actually see everyone’s faces with actual real lights! Hurrah. Also there is a kitchen so I’m going[…]