If there is one thing that fascinates me about improv and that is how it is portrayed in Television, books 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.

I have no interest in American Football, my sport is Ice Hockey but when I saw there was a new show on Disney called Chad Powers I wanted to watch it to see why there was a fascination around Glen Powell. I haven’t watched Twisters as hated the original and have no time for Top Gun and the only thing I had really seen him in was Anyone But You. I watched it as there was so much hype around it and I love a rom com but I hated this film, knowing it was a Shakespeare rip off and then watching how bad it was just made me despise it. I couldn’t understand why there was so much publicity around him and Sydney Sweeney chemistry as I found the acting in the film was pretty poor.

Anyway…moving on to more important things…

Halfway through season one episode one of Chad Powers (1ST QUARTER) improv is mentioned – firstly it is mentioned really positively in a fun way which gave me hope and then it ends up being slapped down literally minutes after and made to look negative again.

Let’s take at the first part with the good quote:

Danny: This isn’t just football. This is acting.
Chad: Acting’s easy. Dogs act, babies act. I’ll figure it out. Lee Corso once called me a master Improviser.
Danny: Every choice you make, you’ll have to commit to. Stay away from backstory and factoids.

This quote gave me hope because a modern American show was portraying it in a positive way for a change. The way that they talk about improv is in a successful way and defining it in a positive way. It is a brief way to describe what improv is for those who do not understand it in the audience. This is all going well until it gets to the next section and h tries to sign up to a try out with Ricky on the sign up desk. This is when it becomes negative again. She starts to get irritated with his stumbling over his name and starts asking if he is part of a practical joke and the improv team and that comedy isn’t funny.

OK, so it’s meant to be a dig at Chad messing up his name but why aim it at improv. It is not relevant to the conversation – the improv discussion was with a completely different character and does not involve Ricky so there is no reason to mention improv but BAM there it is, to create negativity in a scene.

Chad Powers is an interesting show and I have forgiven Glen Powell for that other terrible film. It is actually pretty clever and whilst I may only watch it once, it was enjoyable.

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