Welcome to a brand new feature where we sit down with hosts of podcasts and find out more about them!Today we speak to presenters Beth Organ and Lisa Lynn about the new improv podcast The Acaprov Podcast

Hello, nice to meet you! How did the idea of your podcast come around? 

Beth Organ, as the studious actor she is often sound recorded our shows on her phone to work out how we could improve them. After listening back we realised they were fun to listen to, even without the conscious scene-painting you would add for the purely audio medium.

At the next 2 Christmas parties we recorded Podcast Christmas musicals just for a giggle, and found they really work. Beth was very keen to release one (which we will do this Christmas) and she has experience in producing podcasts, from her own exquisite podcast ‘My Dad Would Know’ (where she and her Dad, a Physicist, answer some of the universes most fascinating questions – check it out!).

Meanwhile Lisa went on an improv pilgrimage across America, Europe and South America (proudly in her Acaprov Merch) and literally hundreds of people were asking ‘where can I see or hear Acaprov shows?!’ so this year we decided to take the plunge and record a whole series of them and put them out into the world and so the #AcaPod #Acapodcast was born: Acaprov The Improvised A Capella Musical Podcast ‘The Acaprov Podcast’

Tell us about the team behind the show! 

Beth joined Acaprov in 2019 not long after Lisa founded it in 2018 – they have felt like family ever since. The Performances are from the Acaprov Cast, which is a pool of 20, as they are nearly all professional actors, including Beth and Lisa, and so take sabbaticals, often to go on tour, shoot feature films etc.

The first 5 Episodes are from the active cast in March 2024, and even then, they are not all in every episode due to availability, but we quickly learned to name who is there at the start.

The March Cast you can hear are: Beth Organ, Lisa Lynn, Pascal Blaschta, Ferran Luengo, JK Lols, Jonathon Whittaker, Anjali Singh, James Daye and Elizabeth Salmon. The Bonus Episode is from May 2023 and additionally features: Matthew Prestage (Shuffle), Harmony Chan (The FA), Jen O’Connor (Southend 48 Hour Improvathon) and Isabel Horner (Oliver Twist, China).

There are so many improv podcasts out there, how do you stand out from the rest? 

We’re a cappella. It’s what sets us apart from all other improvised Musicals across the world, and hopefully what helps us sell out Edinburgh Fringe 2025 on our Dream path to the West End .

Who have been some of your favourite guests you have interviewed? 

We are yet to have guests. In a cast discussion, we voted to make the first eps purely shows, as for us, listening to other Musical Improv Podcasts like the incredible American ‘Off Book’, ‘Baby Wants Candy Podcast’ and ‘The North Coast Podcast’ it is the shows themselves that are our favourite bit. There are also great UK, Irish Podcasts doing interviews already like Sean McInerney’s ‘Electric Priests’, Stuart Moses ‘London Improv Podcast’ and of course ‘The Showstopper! Podcast’.

How do you get improv suggestions for your show? 

For the first 5 episodes, given it was a total experiment, we just asked the cast for suggestions, but going forward we are asking people to slide into our DM’s on Instagram so we can not only keep their suggestion hidden from the cast until the second they come to improvise it, but also so we can give a shout out to the legends that came up with them at the start of each episode – it’s really a ‘create your own musical’ experience.

You can even set it at your own place of work and dedicate it to your boss – we just can’t be held responsible for our depiction of your place of work or the characters that work there!

That said if you want us to come and do your Christmas Party entertainment live, we can absolutely weave in names and character traits as desired –  or better still we can teach y’all how to improvise it yourselves!

Do you use any specialised equipment to record your show? 

Yeti Mics and Beth’s Laptop – that is as far as my technical knowledge extends. We are also blessed to work with the incredible Tiziana Pozzo – circle singer, teacher, performer and manager of Music Tree, Islington who do incredible courses, lessons and recording space for both Children and Adults.

What are the challenges of running a podcast? 

As with producing all improv and musicals with a large cast – diary management. Then Podcast specifically – background noise – which is why we can use the Brighton Fringe (In the Basement of The Walrus, Ship Street, through Laughing Horse) and MusicTree recordings; but sadly not our monthly London shows   (second Friday of every Calander month 7.30pm at The Green, in the Basement of Shoreditch Balls, 333 Old Street, London) thanks to the mini-golf, pool and DJ happening upstairs. 

What are the highlights? 

The laughter. We were all in absolute hysterics trying to record 6 podcast musicals in 1 day was team too much – after pizza we were all bananas and it shows in an episode where we start attaching lovenotes to Dolphins under the sea!

It is also extremely freeing to be able to set stories in space, in an ice rink or under the sea without worrying about how we successfully physically stage them – there is certainly more freedom and room for magic.

Our stage shows tend to be very naturalistic, as that’s they style of acting we prefer (even when we are in space), but even with a super naturalistic setting, in the podcast we can visit way more places seamlessly within that world.

What other shows are you a fan of and why? 

All of those mentioned above plus LD Madera’s ‘Improv and Magic’ and ‘The Guilty Feminist’ by former Spontaneity shop improviser and absolute babe Deborah Frances-White. There are so many incredibly talented people out there it is a joy to listen to them at work, but also to hear of their origin stories and how each one navigates the very difficult to penetrate showbiz industry – it gives us hope, teaches us things, and in Deborahs case unites millions for great causes as well.

Ours is purely out there for entertainment, at least for now, and much like another favourite of ours ‘My Dad Wrote a Porno’ which we highly recommend; hopefully ours too will lighten your day; encourage you to sing, rap or beatbox along; and make you laugh out loud on the tube – because if you live in London, like we mostly do, you know the tube needs more giggles!

Three words why people should check out your show! 

FUN LAUGHTER SINGING

If you have a podcast and want to promote it then drop us an email at phoenixremixcomedy@gmail.com