This week was all about show week and the first thing we had to do was knuckle down the final rehearsal and get all of the kinks sorted in some of our games so that we are ready for show day. Sometimes you cannot predict what happens on the run up to a big show but sadly two of our Punders were really badly ill (they are ok now I should add) so we were two players down – we made sure that we had a plan in place to sort out how parts of the show worked as soon as we knew that they were not going to make it.

Even with the last minute changes, the show went really well this week – the support acts were all completely different improv styles with lots of high energy meaning that it worked really really well and contrasted the short form of Punders in the middle.

Even though we were two players down, the set went really well, all of the new games that we were really worried about went down a storm and played well to the audience. The highlights of the show included Greatest Hits,  Authors, Lines From a Hat and Human Props. The way you can tell a good show is when you find it really hard to keep in character due to laughing and this was one of those shows. As you may remember last week in Improv Diaries, I was super nervous about hosting Blind Date but due to a line up change Paul ended up being the contestant and it was hilarious. As I have mentioned before in the article The Peoples Improviser, he has a way of staying very chilled on stage and then says the most craziest things that it can be really hard to keep a straight face. Add that to Jimmy, Amanda and Jake doing some great characters and I was an absolute mess on stage and found it so hard to keep it together.

It was such a fun show and really enjoyed every single game I was part of as well as watching all the support acts.

Case Study – Plus Support 

This week saw the epic return of improv group Plus Support to the stage – I haven’t seen them perform before but I spent a lot of the summer performing with a lot of them in different shows so when I heard they wanted to do sets again I booked them straight away as I knew they were all talented and would put on a great show!

I really enjoyed their set as the style of improv they did I haven’t seen performed since I lived in Newcastle. The set is based around a village where all of the players play a different character in the village and it takes you on a journey throughot the different narratives that happen.

I really enjoyed seeing this format again – it worked so well. I think the main thing that this format relies on is strong players and all of Plus Support are really strong so they make it work really well. I really enjoyed their set and look forward to seeing them again – I do hope they do an hour set somewhere as I feel it is a narrative that needs this development.