This week was all about getting the details perfect for the show we have coming up on the 12th this week. We were luckily joined by someone who was a friend of the group who was also our first audience member which was really good as it gave is the critique that we needed.

The benefit about having an audience of even only one was that it was a great way of gaining the feedback we needed to make the final changes. Due to the fact it was a friend that is an improviser as well was really helpful as they gave back truthful feedback as they know the factors of what make a show and the dynamics that work with an audience and what does not. The most important part of the show was making sure that the games are explained well and that they are defined well so that the audience understand what is happening and what they can expect from the games. I have been to many nights where the concept of the show was not described well or sometimes, not at all and it was difficult to follow as to what was going on.

This is what we wanted to take from other shows and learn from issues we have seen and try and work on that with our own show. Now, the show we are performing in April will be the first show as a troupe and performing this particular show so its is not going to probably be the best thing we have ever done, however by taking on these elements on board we can do an opening show with a strong start and a keen interest in what we are doing.

This week was all about getting the games we are performing in our first show rehearsed so we know how we are playing them and what to ask the audience for suggestion wise. In the past few weeks we have played so many variations of different games that we had to choose which one would work well and also what our audience member thought of the different games and which hey thought would be the best show for a crowd in our first show.

I think our penultimate practise went well and our show is in a great place to perform and onc we have all the content and back up skits in place we will hopefully be ready for everything!

Case Study – Chris Mead.

This weeks case study sort of came out of the blue, i was going to write about something else but then an article popped up on my Facebook that was such a good read that I wanted to advertise it for other Improvisers to read and secondly it actually makes a really good case study for the topic in which I am talking about today.

Chris Mead is a name that echoes throughout the Improv scene in London and he is well known for being a great Improviser. I myself have never seen him perform but my fellow friend I met in the Newcastle Improv scene has been trained by him a number of times and talks very highly of him being a great teacher and fun to be taught by. I was meant to sign up to the same class as my friend Frasier, but due to work commitments of working in TV i sadly couldn’t sign up at the same time – however it is still on my to do list this year!

If you have time to look at the article of Chris’ attached then i would highly recommend it as its a really interesting read for anyone that is part of a troupe or thinking of forming one. One of the big points to take away from Chris’ article is that you have to take every show as it comes and just move on if a show is bad. I have bad shows in the past and while they suck you can’t think of it as a be all and end all of improv. These things happen, you just have to dust your knees off and start again. Saying this, lets hope our debut show isn’t so bad that we get pelted off the stage otherwise we will be doing a lot more then wiping, it will include a shower to get rid of the tomato juice.

The second point that Chris makes is that you Improv team is a family business and that as well as sharing improv you have to act like a family as well. I think from the get go we knew that we wanted to perform together and over the past few months it’s been evident from the rehearsals and the input from everyone that we want to be a team and the enthusiasm really does show – everything from when we are practising games, choosing set games to filming social media skits and things. We have a few actors in our troupe and whilst they cannot be there all the time for our rehearsals at the moment, in the future they will be and we have created a format that allows them go on tour and will work with a minimum of three people.

The last point i will talk about that Chris mentions is about trying new things. It’s funny, when we all started doing rehearsals and were in the planning stages of coming up with our first set, we ended up by accident creating two formats even maybe three that we want to try in the future! Even when we practised the same games over and over again we would still come up with new ways of doing things and creating ideas. It’s funny, one of the things you think would be the hardest thing to do is actually becoming one of the easiest to do and we are enjoying all the new ideas we keep coming up with.