At Edinburgh Fringe this year, there was one show that was spreading in popularity by word of mouth because it was so unique and creative. It was a show that received five star after five star and even got standing ovations. I was lucky enough to go to Ice Hole and you can even read the review I wrote by clicking here. The one thing that constantly stuck in the back of my head when I first started watching it was, Improvisers can learn so much from this show.

Character movement

One thing we can learn from the show Ice Hole that movement of a character is vital to a show. The biggest laughs in the show came when the actor in the background working with the cardboard would move in different ways to connote certain characters. For example, there was a piece of cardboard and all it said was the word seagull but the audience reacted so strongly with laughter to this because the actor holding the sign would move his whole body in a sassy way to connote that the seagull was trouble.

In improv we can sometimes forget that movement is just as vital (or maybe even more!) to bringing a scene to life on stage. Movement can bring a character to life, it can create an emotion, it can create a vision and that is something that you need to think about.

+ Creativity

When I was in an improv group, I used to have a lot of HUGE creative ideas as to what we could do on stage and sometimes I got told that it was too big and too hard to create. I disagree. If anything, Ice Hole proved to me that if you have an idea, nom matter how silly or extreme it is, it can used to create something really special. I still have these key ideas in my head and I hope to use them one day.

+ Creating a world

Ice Hole taught me that even by using hundreds of bits of cardboard, they were able to build this amazing world to the audience and get a standing ovation for it. The one thing that we sometimes forget to do in improv is build the scene, this is so important in a world when you are relying on people’s imaginations. It makes all the difference to take time to interact with the world around you and make something out of it.

+ Gibberish

The whole show is nearly all in gibberish, that is a long time for an audience to keep interested in a show if there is no words to go along with it. However, it was done so well – the actor used so much emotion when he spoke, he made it sound like he was talking in a real language. His expressions and the way that he worked with the gibberish was so good that it was one of the best uses of it I have ever seen.

I think this is something that is incredibly important for improvisers for many reasons. The first is that it shows that you do not need words to make a scene or a show work well! So many players worry that they have to speak to fill a hole on stage to make a point when actually a movement can sometimes just be enough.

Gibberish is used in some games for improv and when this happens, people tend to panic or not see the opportunities it actually can lead to. This show proved to me that gibberish can be used in such a great way if used correctly and that you can produce some really strong audience worthy content by using just this simple tool.