People playing with my hair during scenes can give me the heebeegeebees. Not everyone knows that. This week I’ve been playing with new people so when I’ve been asked to contribute to boundary chats, I’ve let the group know my hair is off-limits. I’ve said: no playing with my hair, please. I realised it isn’tContinue reading “The Boundary Line”
Tag Archives: improvised
Improv for Survival
After nearly two years, it felt amazing to put a show in front of a live real-life audience. We had completely lost touch with whether anything we were doing was funny. Had we got to the point where we just made each other laugh? Would it be like a pin drop as we muddled throughContinue reading “Improv for Survival”
Suggest This
You get up onto the stage. You’re raring to go. You’re improvising, running a jam, or hosting a show. You ask for a suggestion. Someone calls back from the audience. You feel grateful someone is saying something. You feel you owe them. But the suggestion is gross. It’s smutty. It’s sexual. It’s unpleasant. It’s aboutContinue reading “Suggest This”
The Real World Return
I look around Beaconsfield Services – a sprawling hexagon-like building crammed with fast food outlets and bright moving screens. Outside it’s pissing it down with rain. The pitch-black void of the world is butting up against the tear-smeared windows. This is purgatory, the no-man’s-land between the improv mothership and that dirty rascal reality. On theContinue reading “The Real World Return”
Hybrid Improv Forms
They could be called the world’s most lovable hybrid – just look at that furry face! They have the playful, shed-less temperament of a poodle, mixed with the fun features of an [insert other dog breed]. And those poodles have been busy. There’s the eskapoo, the schoodle, the bassetoodle, the jack-a-poo, the rottle, the saintContinue reading “Hybrid Improv Forms”
Finding the Fun Improvising Online
The first time I did online improv I wanted to jab myself in the head with a fork. So I might feel something. Anything. Looking around at the other participants I suspected I was not alone. It was painfully slow, flat, and boring. I could see myself smiling inanely but my eye kept being drawnContinue reading “Finding the Fun Improvising Online”
Be You. No, thanks.
I can’t help but feel it’s a bit of a trap. And I don’t like traps. Never have. I made one once when I was on a Wilderness Survival course. It was a weird contraption made from a stick with a hole in the end, some string, and a loop of wire. It was supposedContinue reading “Be You. No, thanks.”
A Cure for Writer’s Block
A surprising number of people claim writer’s block does not exist. What a strange thing it is to suggest that something you have not experienced, can not therefore exist. It feels as weird as declaring love does not exist or happiness for that matter. Can you imagine the uproar in claiming there is no happiness?Continue reading “A Cure for Writer’s Block”
Ten Top Tips for Thriving at an Improv Retreat
My first improv retreat went by in a blur of exhaustion, adrenaline and weird noises. It never really occurred to me not to go again. Sadly the last few have been cancelled but there was also a pandemic to think about. Now here in the UK, things have been slowly opening up. As we rattleContinue reading “Ten Top Tips for Thriving at an Improv Retreat”
Thinking Inside the Box
In the school hall, I sit with an imaginary cardboard box balanced precariously on my thighs. I feel the weight slowly shift, its contents gradually re-distributing itself. An itsy bitsy ruckus in a space only a bit bigger than a shoebox. I know exactly what is inside. The other things I know are that theContinue reading “Thinking Inside the Box”
Spontaneous Tortoise 