This week we had a rehearsal where we delved Into a set of games we are still experimenting with that are regular short form games on the improv circuit. So this included games such as survivor where four of you start a scene and then by the last round it is only one of you doing all part in the scene which is tiring but very fun to watch.

We also had a show this week where we wanted to use it to try out new games that we wanted to test worked in front of audiences. We are hosting our second big show in September so we want to bring new content to the show and not have the same things as before.

One of the games that we tried had an element of Twitter to it – we were not sure how it would work in a performance space so we dialed it down a bit to see if it actually worked. The Twitter part of the game worked so well that we walked away from the set deciding to work on the game more and to make it a bigger part in a game format.

In the games we used inspiration from Kim Kardashian Twitter account and it worked really well. The other game we decided to try out two line vocabulary again. I wanted to test how commercial television shows that make the news would work in a scene in Front of an audience. Sometimes you get these suggestions and wanted to throw one in. One suggestion was about gangsters but the one the audience chose was the guys being thrown into a cheating scenario in love island and it worked really well where they find out that one of the guys, Danny, is cheating with another love islander.

It worked really well and got a lot of laughs from the audience.

Case Study –  BBC Newcastle 

At the show this week one of the improv troupes really stood out to me as it made me think of my time working at BBC Newcastle. They were an improv troupe called Bra who focussed on doing a show in the format of a news channel and the headlines are formed through a few words from the audience.

The suggestions lead to a story about a Geordie woman finding an octopus in her onions. The reason I enjoyed it so much was because the approach to it was similar to the way a regional news broadcaster would do it and that’s why I found the scene I think a lot more funny then others because it really related to past experiences.

With regional news the news packages you edit are a lot longer then national news so it means you have more time to interview a number of people to create a non bias approach. This is why I really liked the set by Bra because it really reminded me of working in a regional news environment and the stories that you may have to report on and the seriousness you have to approach them even though they can have a really silly topic surrounding them.

In an improv related sense, the set was quite good because it was different to many of the others on the set list and was good because it worked well in a comedy format. It had an essence of Have I Got News For You and Mock The Week which also helped I think audiences associate with the act that don’t work in news to relate to it more.