There is one thing that fascinates me about improv and that is how it is portrayed in Television and Film. This is becoming more and more apparent in recent years because the comedy art form is sort of in fashion. There are some interesting topics that we can gain from these ways they are displayed so every so often we are going to look at different scenes from different shows and films and books.

We have spoken about Jimmy Carr’s book many times on this feature because it has so many interesting sections about improv and today we are going to look at a third and final quote in his book is relevant to improv.

Before we discuss this anymore, let’s have a look at the quote that I will be discussing:

The one thing I really liked about Jimmy’s book is that it is so positive about improv which you don’t tend to see a lot. The fact that he praises it is just fascinating and is already great.

The main point that Jimmy mentions in this paragraph is the fact that improv scenes or games follow a pattern that leads the structure. He highlights the fact that whilst improv is made up on the spot there are still structures in place.

People who don’t train in improv may not know that each game or even scene that you see on stage has a rule in place to make it work. The one place that this is usually evident is in short form games.

If you don’t have any small rules in place then it means that all improv could technically look the same. Patterns to a game can create difference and creativity. Just because these are rules it does not mean they cannot be broken…something we can discuss another time.