Tell Us about:

Your latest improv show: 

Brendan Way: We run a jam pretty much every Monday barring August and the Christmas holidays, so chances are there’s one next week! Check our Eventbrite page to get free tickets to the latest show.

Your favourite suggestion you have been given?

Vanessa T : Not a suggestion, but a line someone said in a 2-person scene when their character called my character boring to my face! It was brilliant and emotionally charged and it gave me so much to run with. This was over 5 years ago but remains in my top 3 favourite improv moments! 

Brendan Way: Dan and I are part of a transatlantic Zoom show where British people can ask Americans cultural questions and vice versa. Someone once asked us ‘are kippers still a teatime treat?’.

Your favourite venue to perform at:

Dan Luxton: Anywhere you wouldn’t expect to find an improv show. The back of a bookshop in Folkestone (playing with my team Plus Support) holds a particularly fond memory. 

Brendan Way: I’ve had a lot of great shows hosted by Act’in Theatre at the Toulouse Lautrec in Kennington. It’s a cool space and always has a killer up for it audience.

Michael: Our current home, The Bell. Because it’s haunted.

Brendan Way: I’m surprised Michael said that. Only because he died on this very day ten years ago…

Vanessa T :That’s rich coming from the (unconfirmed, but canonically accepted) Victorian schoolboy who once even played a Victorian schoolboy in a Halloween podcast.

Brendan Way: I’m not a Victorian schoolboy – I just look young because of that cursed rotting portrait in my attic. Also, shoutout to that podcast – Omelette Improv London. Hosted by Michael (RIP).

Improv hero:

Brendan Way: I think it’s pretty impressive if you can turn improv into a career. So I would say my first improv teacher, Chris Mead. He teaches at fests all over the world!

Lou Bogatchek : Anything Tom Webster does or says is the funniest thing to ever happen.

Dream venue to play at: 

Brendan Way: I had an actual dream in which I hosted our show in my childhood dining room. Which as a space was NOT ideal.

Michael: The Minack open air theatre in Cornwall. Imagine improv with a sea view!

Lou Bogatchek : The Royal Albert Hall. Go big or go home.

Describe the feeling you get when you walk on stage to do a show:

Vanessa T : For as long as I have been doing improv, I have always gone through the same thought cycle: omg everyone here is really good. I don’t know how I’m going to do this… > oh, this is actually pretty fun, I can’t believe I doubted myself! > how the F did I just do all of that? > omg everyone here is really good…. etc!

Michael: The DDG audience is always so warm, so I feel very welcome when I walk on stage. The nerves usually disappear.

Lou Bogatchek : So much more comfortable than I would ever have expected to feel on stage in front of a bunch of strangers. Improvisers are a lovely crowd, and at the end of the day, it’s mostly about playing with the people who are on stage with you.

Brendan Way: I can certainly tell you what it feels like when I walk off stage after our shows. Complete mind wipe. Like I’ve been hit with the neuralyzer from Men In Black. What happened onstage? No clue. You’d have to remind me by showing me pictures and quotes.

The hardest improv suggestion to perform and why:

Dan Luxton: The hardest subjects are the ones you know most about. There’s extra pressure to deliver, especially at a jam like ours where the regulars know our specialist subjects. Are the references you’re dropping too obscure? Are you being funny or a know-it-all? You end up inside your own head, which is never a good place to be in improv. 

Vanessa T :I find immediate callbacks difficult. They’re funny as a single line of delivery but it’s hard to know where to go with that suggestion. I’m a big overthinker and half of me worries that leaning into the suggestion will be too on-the-nose and the other half worries that moving away from the literal suggestion will be too obvious.

Lou Bogatchek : Whenever the suggestion is a personal story from an audience member, I feel extra pressure to do it justice.

Essential items you always take with you to a show?:

Brendan Way: My badges. A few of us hosts / jam captains have some prefect-style badges which say ‘captain’. I put mine on before every show and feel like a little sheriff.

Vanessa T :My phone to keep an eye on time, note down quotes, and to take snaps/videos/boomerangs for Instagram.

Describe your fans in three words:

Brendan Way: Loyal, hilarious, brave.

Vanessa T :Brilliant, supportive, friendly 

What we can look forward to from you this year:

Dan Luxton: 2024 saw us celebrate 10 years of DDG, but there’s more milestones to come! In 2025, we’ll hit our 500th show, plus we’ll reach the point where some of the longest-serving hosts will have spent a decade as part of Team DDG. Just think how many rickety bar stools I’ve nearly fallen off in that time…

Brendan Way: DDG would like to state they neither endorse or encourage climbing on stage furniture…

Vanessa T : Look, we can’t force you to not climb on the stage furniture but if you hurt yourself, please don’t bring a personal injury claim against us.

Dan Luxton: WHEEE, I’M FLYING.

Brendan Way: You can look forward to more great jams! We’re a great place to watch and try improv.

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