I have spoken about the Conan Needs A Friend podcast many times on this article before because there is always something very interesting that is discussed that is relevant to improv. The other day I was listening to this show again as it had two of my favourite comedians on – Steve Martin and Marty Short. It is always so fun to listen to shows with them and Conan because they are all friends so there is always a lot of laughs along the way too which makes it a very entertaining listen. They started to discuss about how they started to team up as a double act and about performing shows together and there was some topics discussed that were very relevant to improv that I just had to share.

Conan was asking the duo about if all the content they perform on stage is prepared or whether they make stuff up on the spot some nights. Steve Martin was discussing about the fact that sometimes he will get a new idea that he wants to try before the show and sometimes is determined it is going to go really well with the audience and sometimes they don’t response to it as he hoped. He was also discussing the fact that sometimes things work and you still cannot understand why they worked and why the audience enjoyed it. Marty Short also adds that there is always the fear of not doing things well on stage when you try out something new.

I think conversation is incredibly relevant to improv because it is the same feeling that players can get when they approach the stage and the audience do not react the way you expected. You put something into a show that you think that the audience is going to find funny and they don’t, however you can say something completely random and then that can get a bigger laugh. It is a fascinating thing. Audiences an be so unpredictable that is can be hard to judge what they are going to find funny – especially in improv.

The thing that I suppose is slightly different to stand up comedy to improv is that in the first style you are expecting a laugh at a certain point and if it does not, then you know that a joke has failed or not landed correctly. With improv, if an audience do not laugh at an exact point, it is not the end of the world as they are more then likely going to laugh at a different section of the show that you may not of been expecting that can be even more fun for the players as you can heighten that area – in stand up you do not have that luxury.

There is one thing left to discuss and that is the feeling of failure – whether or not improv is made up on the spot, it can feel like a fail if someone doesn’t laugh at a section of the show that you improvised and was pretty pleased about. Yes, it is made up on the spot but sometimes that feeling can kick in but with improv it is always easy to change it next time because it is all made up on the spot where as with stand up comedy it is very different as it is structured and relies on a script.