With the Improv season about to recharge and start again at full throttle in London, we thought it was a perfect time to sit down with the head of Hoopla, Steve Roe to have an in depth conversation all about the world of improv.

In the next week we have an exclusive 3 part interview where we talk about lots of different things.

Hi Steve! Tell us about yourself to introduce you to our readers! 

Hello I’m Steve Roe and I’m the Director of Hoopla (www.hooplaimpro.com). We do lots of improv courses in London and are very welcoming to beginners and people new to improv and acting. We also run the UK’s first ever improv comedy club with a selection of great improv groups every night.

How did you get into improv?

I was trying to write sketch comedy for fun as a hobby. But my girlfriend at the time pointed out that I never laughed when doing it and didn’t seem very happy. So we took the night off and went to see a random show. The random show turned out to be The Maydays in Brighton, one of the UK’s best improv groups.

 I didn’t know what improv was but I loved it and loved the thrill of 100 people all together in one room laughing. The group were improvising things that were far funnier than anything I’d been trying to write for months. At the end they announced they do workshops but it took me about three months to pluck up the courage to go, as I was pretty shy at the time. When I finally went I really loved and decided to do it forever.

Where did the name Hoopla come from?

We’d been running a free improv group for about half a year at The Bedford in Balham but it didn’t have a name. Then some of the core members (old school friends of mine) and me went on holiday together to North Devon. Some of them had been reading about clowns and were obsessed with shouting hoopla hoopla hoopla as we drove through small Devon villages. Then we took a load of magic mushrooms and they were shouting it even more. By that point the word was tatooed into our subconcious and we just started calling the improv group hoopla without even thinking about it.

For me it comes from the joy of doing something fun in front of an audience and shouting “Hoopla” at the end to mark the grande finale. I think it might originate from Greek where they shout Opa! during dances and celebrations and it really gets the crowd going. If I lost Hoopla in a trademark battle (there are a lot of other Hooplas) I would rename it Opa!

Tell us about what courses Hoopla has coming up this autumn? 

Oh my gosh all the courses! This is such a promotional question I love it. Roll up roll up come get your Hoopla!

For beginners we have LOTS of beginners improv courses starting in September across London including London Bridge, Kings Cross, Liverpool Street and Bank. That’s our best one to start with and is open to people with no previous experience.

We also have lots of Performance Courses which is about nurturing people into performing improv for the first time in fun stress free way with games and scenes.

Other courses we have are long-form, narrative long form (improvising plays), Harolds with Katy Schutte, improvised singing, sketch comedy with a writer from Tracey Ullman’s show, stand up comedy and more.

We basically put on more than ever. Opa!

” …I didn’t know what improv was but I loved it and loved the thrill of 100 people all together in one room laughing…” – Steve Roe 

From looking at the teaching time table Hoopla has got really big this year and you have hired more teachers for classes! That must be exciting for Hoopla?

Well spotted! Yes we’ve got more people than ever and we’re going to get some more teachers in later this year. I’m doing lots of training with them all this season to help us bond as a team and have a shared vision of what we’re doing. It actually feels like I’m doing real work now.

What’s your favourite lessons to teach and why?

I love them all but my favourite of all is teaching the beginners courses, as I can relate to what it feels like to be a scared beginner (I was one) and I love it when they flourish and create things that surprise them.

Some of the best improv in the world comes from beginners courses, as you can see people genuinely surprise themselves.

More from Steve later this week. To find out more you can follow him on Twitter @Hooplaimpro