improving improv

Elseweb I put together something I’m pretty proud of, a list of ways to help build the local improvisation scene in 2019. It’s here at the Open Heart Theatre blog. Doing it involved gathering together ideas from a bunch of people across the UK and beyond, and it was a rare example of Facebook really being useful. It was also a chance to flex writing muscles a little, as I’m not doing as much as I’m used to doing. Here’s a good point from one collaborator:

Believe in ourselves more. The UK scene has the world’s longest running improv show (Comedy Store Players) and started Whose Line which took improv into the mainstream. Keith Johnstone came from England, and we have inherited a rich theatrical tradition populated with leviathans. We have some of the most successful improv shows worldwide (Showstoppers, Austentatious, Comedy Store Players) as well as improv groups that have broken out into other theatre (The Mischief in the west end and broadway).

We have developed a glorious melting pot of styles, thanks to our own traditions and the benefits of being geographically near to European community and linguistically near to improv centers hundreds or thousands of miles away. Let’s keep being brave and experimental and non-exclusive.

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