This week it was all about planning for the show. The main aim was to try and get a concept nailed down so that we were ready to get into rehearsal mode. We talked about games we enjoyed playing, the amount of time we have in a show and how to get to each of the games. We broke them into categories and then took it from there.

Once we had the games we liked narrowed down and an ideas as to how they would work we then went through the sections and started playing the games. From doing this worked out ways to develop the games, make them snappy and even reinvent them and twist it.

Our main focus this week was character and bringing emphasis on these instead of just playing a scene. When enthusiasm and action was added to a scene the whole thing lifted by 100% and became a lot more funnier to an audience member.

Some of the games that we played tonight including the alphabet game the XXL edition – a version we made up/extended The game to- the prop game, the accent game and genre based games. The highlight of the evening was doing rhyming scenes with all of us partaking – it worked really well and we found it really hard to play without laughing.

This was a great week and it feels like we are finally making progress and getting us ready for the show. Still it is a long way to go. We have however launched all our social media platforms so if you want to follow our adventure then please like us on Facebook by clicking here

Case Study – Andy Samberg 

This week I felt that the Comedian Andy Samberg was a great fit for a number of reasons. I admire Samberg for some of his work that he has done on SNL with his comedy troupe The Lonley Island – whilst a lot of it is really stupid or really random he is a great example of someone who puts a lot of emphasis on character and excitement.

IF you look at the type of characters that he plays in SNL shorts and in the skits, he always plays characters that have creative or unique identities and he exaggerates them to a really high level so that the comedy is created through the character itself. You just need to look at some of the characters that I have included in this article. Whilst some of the characters are completely silly and insane, the humour comes from the exaggeration that he puts into them. There is a great thing that he does where he has a really high energy character and then all of a sudden that character will go all serious and get upset if someone doesn’t get the character (still all part of the scene).

This is a great characteristic to take on board when you are improvising, because that is what can create the high level of comedy to the audience. When we were playing one of our improv games for example the alphabet game we discovered it worked so much better if it is really high energy.

A lot of people play this game and just stand around focusing on the actual game not on the scene and this is where the performance falls apart – you are just on stage having  conversation, and like Bev from The Suggestibles always states “its like an improviser going into a car and it not going anywhere”.

When we played the scene in the Andy Samberg style it was such a different scene not just for the audience but also for the improvisers in the scene – they felt the difference and they felt the energy, and just like Andy Samberg when they were having issues with the letters the ‘fails’ (or the upset moment of Samberg) it worked so well as it created a natural break in the scene as well as a high laughter point for the audience.