This was the last rehearsal I was going to have with Punders for a while as I am going on an eight week course I have desperately been wanting to do since I moved back to London – Musical Improv – so so so so so excited!!!!!

This week was all about doing a run through of the show structure we had and seeing how long it was and how well it worked now we had decided not to work on audio.

From doing the last few shows, we sound relying on someone who wasn’t part of the show to do the tech of pressing play on the voice over at the right time was hard to rehearse as they didn’t know the show as well as we did , so because we have so many members now then we did before, we decided to bring it “in house” and make the audio voice over morph into an actual presenter.

This means that for our show, there will be one person who will not be doing the games but instead leading the show as a presenter. For the first show this was to be me. This was for many reasons:

1. I am going on a 8 week course and I can’t be there for all rehearsals so it means that while I am not there it means that the rest of the group can focus on getting the game dynamics correct.

2. I came up with the idea so I know it inside out and so by me presenting the show means that I can lead it without much rehearsal.

3. I have an idea of the timings the games need to be so I can time it as well.

4. We have a lot of members now so it means that by having one as the presenter it means that everyone gets a fair go on stage.

The timed rehearsals went extremely well especially for being out first proper run through. We were only a couple of minutes out of the allotted time that we had which is very good as it means we only need to tighten up the show as a whole.

We decided on a group game to start and then two which splits up the team so that everyone has a fair go. We decided to make characters a strong element again as last time we did a show that was something that was important. It worked well as a concept and we all felt happy about how everything went and what we want to get out of our shows.

With the lead presenter we want to make them unique and stand out to an audience. So we are going to use both improv techniques and makeup to create a quirky and unique frontman to make the whole experience come alive. We need someone to make Improv Towers feel real and weird – as it is a place where a crazy person lives who wants to keep improvisers in his dungeon – so they have to be weird!

I love my troupe members and sad I can’t practise as much as I want to with them but I trust that they will knuckle down and get the games in a fantastic game progress.

Case Study – Richard O’Brien 

I have started to look at the way that presenters of shows host a programme and what techniques they use. Every show I watch whether its a panel show such as Quack Ducks Don’t Echo, a television show such as Greg Davies in Taskmaster or a podcast like Elis James and John Robins, I am listening constantly to the way in which things are presented.

Like I said above, the way in which we want to present our show is a wacky but with a dark side to it, gameshow. This is why someone like Richard O’Brien is so great to watch in the way that he presents the Crystal Maze. Whilst our inspiration for this game concept didn’t come from this television show (it actually comes from the mix of a board game concept and the CBBC show the Incredible Games) it is a fantastic show to watch because it is so well presented and his character has made the show a lead cult as it is today.

His unique style, personality and sense of humour makes him the perfect presenter and really brings the whole concept of the Crystal Maze alive. I recently watched the new revived show with Richard Ayoade and whilst he is ok at presenting it, he will never be like the original master.

When it comes to improv and presenting a show, you need to take your inspiration from everywhere and there will be some people that will help you to create an identity or a character. Richard O’Brien is that to me.