Last  week was a fun one in regards to improv, i performed my second show on stage which went really well and also had the last lesson for the month. It has been a whole bunch of interesting lessons and turns so lets start with show time.

The Rat Race Improv Show, 20/3/16

Photo Credit: Improvisation Foundation

On Sunday night I participated again in the Rat Race in Newcastle, similar to Whose Line Is It Anyway, it consists of two teams that are competing to win a cheese themed prize. Each contestant participates in a variety of games including DIE, orchestra and Meanwhile  (more about this game later). We also played smaller games where certain members of the team went up. I participated in the accent rollercoaster (which i was awful at) this is a game where members of the audience shout out accents and you have to do them – i am no good at accents so it got a lot of laughs. The other game that I participated in was called one scene three emotions where you do a mundane task such as ironing or hoovering and the audience shout out three emotions you are to put to the same scene and change it.

Photo Credit: Improvisation Foundation

Improv Training – 22/3/16

Last week improv training was the last for March and like all the ones this month it was really interesting and helpful. We focussed on the game concept of “meanwhile”. This is a game where members of the audience write suggestions of scenes they want to see and they are performed in a quick fire round (so to speak). So examples are “meanwhile at the space station” “meanwhile Hannah is jumping around” “meanwhile the earth begins to shake.”

In these practise sessions we developed on how to make them more developed and not just like a quick joke or a quick laugh. We focussed on how to build it up and waiting for others to develop a surrounding before jumping on stage. After doing a few of these we then focussed on doing them in quick turn arounds and from doing the first exercise it ended up helping us develop stronger short ones. After we did this we did some games to finish off the session which were also good fun.

The Boy With Tape On His Face

I felt that the Boy With Tape on His Face was a good case study for this weeks blog post. He is a comedian who doesn’t talk throughout the whole of his set and relies on building up a scene and facial expressions to entice the audience. He relies on music, props and audience participation to make his set strong and very entertaining.

This is a good case study to look at when thinking of the game ‘Meanwhile’ in which we focussed on because his use of music and expressions and timing (not always fast paced) help us to create a vision as to what he is doing next and this can be applied the same in Improv. It’s not always a race to get to the final result sometimes you have to build it up and it will entertain the audience a lot more.