Welcome to our glorious feature for the month of April!   This month we have the privilege and honour to be going behind the scenes of the Improv Treehouse Podcast. The show is ran by Emily Brady and is a fortnightly podcast that interviews some of the best improv troupes around the UK. This month I sit down with Emily to talk all thing podcasts and improv.

Hello Emily! So for anyone that does not know who you are tell us about you?

Hello! I run the Improv Treehouse podcast – the idea is that we chat to different improvisers and teams from around the UK (and beyond) to see what makes them tick! In my non-podcasting improv time I also perform with a bunch of teams – including Rhymes Against Humanity, The Improvised Star Wars Show, and Epic! The Improvised Movie – as well as helping to organise MissImp, which is an improvised theatre organisation in Nottingham!

How did you get into improv?

I used to watch Whose Line Is It Anyway obsessively – I had the songs memorised, and made my own badges for my school uniform with different cast members on them. I was very cool. The fact that the University of Nottingham had an improv team was one of the main reasons I applied, and I started learning through them!

“My hope is that it makes people feel more in the room with us!’ – Emily Brady, Improv Treehouse 

How did the world of Improv Treehouse begin?

I used to love making podcasts when I did student radio – I love sound editing and always found it weirdly relaxing. MissImp – the organisation I help run – used to do a podcast back in 2012, way back before I joined and was still a student. I remember listening to them talking about a show I’d been in and the rush it gave me to hear people who had been improvising for years talking about my show when I’d only been doing it for a few months, and I think I always wanted to recreate that for other people!

What inspired you to start a podcast?

The classic moment I always give is that a team called the Vox Pops were trying to explain their Armando format to me in a pub after a rehearsal, and I just wasn’t getting it. It wasn’t until they started chatting about it as a team that something clicked and I understood what it was! I wanted to recreate that sense of a team chatting – I think it’s really entertaining whilst also being informative!

What other podcasts do you find inspiring and why?

I cannot and will never not mention the Improv London podcast – there is not a single dud episode and Stuart is one of the nicest men in the world. I’m also really into the Dreamweaver Quartet’s podcast and Showstopper’s podcasts at the moment – they both do amazing musical improv in podcast form, and I’m always flabbergasted by the quality of the improv, and the sound! (Seriously how do they record singing that well to whom do I talk)

What have been some of the challenges that you have come across whilst recording a podcast?

I think one of the main challenges is organising big groups of people to record with – it can be hard to coordinate whole troupes to be together! Also, finding spaces to record that are soundproof can be tricky – there are definitely episodes when you can hear trams in the background. My hope is that it makes people feel more in the room with us!

More next week….