Myths & Legends: This week at The London Improv Comedy Club

Katy and Rach sitting in the same order as their name.

Greetings earthling. Gosh, you're a funny little creature. I like you, you have a nice face and many of you are pleasant to each other. Back here on Phaelon we are pretty mean-spirited and constantly trying to slap each other. It's our way of life, don't judge us.


We do share a thing with you guys, though. We like improv. On Phaelon, every city and hamlet has an improv theatre. That makes a total of two improv theatres on our planet. Awesome!


We booked these guys to come and play. Some day they'll develop light speed interstellar time-travel and they'll come and do the gig, but until then you get to enjoy them... so please do.

TUESDAY 1ST MAY
MUSIC BOX 
and STORY BAG
Story Bag is a new long form show from a cast of awesome improvisers. Join them as they delve into some sort of satchel, and pull out a tale of pretty things and magic. With Susan Harrison, Amy Bailey, Nicola Kidner, Alex Fradera, Andrew Gentili, Michael Brunstrom, Dylan Buckle... and the power of their mighty minds.

They'll be followed by the excellent Music Box, improvising a full-fat musical with all the trimmings.
★★★★★ - Remote Goat    ★★★★★ - Fringe Guru

WHEN: 8pm, Tuesday 1st May

COST: £5 on the door

WHERE: The Miller, 96 Snowsfields Road, London, SE1 3SS

WEDNESDAY 2ND MAY

SPONTANEITY SHOP

and KATY & RACH

The 'Spon Shop' is London's leading improv training school. On Wednesday their Level 3 class will be putting everything they've learnt on to our stage at The Miller. Level 3 classes are by invite only, so it's bound to be a blast.

They'll be followed by the leviathanic genius of Katy Schutte (★★★★★ - Three Weeks) and Rachel Blackman (★★★★★ - Fringe Review) improvising a 1-hour comedy show about real life. “It’s like watching people fly”. They're like the British T.J. and Dave... Except one of them is Australian.

WHEN: 8pm, Wednesday 2nd May

COST: £5 on the door

WHERE: The Miller, 96 Snowsfields Road, London, SE1 3SS

SUNDAY 6TH MAY

THE WILMOPS

and PROJECT TWO

The Wilmington Arms house teams: HMS OMG and Jury Service present their usual array of Harold-based madness.

Then special guest for this week is Project Two...

"We are not made of history, we are made by history." 

- Martian Luther Kang, 2088AD

Husky and Scotch are the only two technicians aboard the Project Two Facility, an infinite library of all sentient history since records began in the year 2017. Welcome, visitor, which archive do you wish to view?
Improvised science fiction which may or may not feature robots. Project Two is Jonathan Monkhouse ( @london_improv ) with Paul Foxcroft ( @misterspidergod ) standing in for Chris Mead ( @theoodcast ).

WHEN: 7.30pm, Sunday 6th May

COST: £4 on the door

WHERE: The Wilmington Arms, 69 Roseberry Avenue, Clerkenwell, EC1R 4RL

SPECIAL MENTION - COMING SOON

An entirely improvised comedy soap opera set in Ancient Greece during the 2012 BC games. The fifth annual 50 hour London Improvathon features some of the best improvisers from the UK, Ireland, America, Australia, Canada, India, Norway, Greece and Holland in a hilarious celebration of all things spontaneous.

Performed round the clock for 50hrs straight, this is an extraordinary and euphoric ensemble performance.

Pop in any time you like, day or night. Come in costume if you wish!

So whether you are looking for a bit of Friday evening comedy, a perfect continuation for your night out or a Sunday family outing, come join us whatever time you feel like! And don't miss the final few episodes where the whole extravaganza comes to its fantastic finale.

We provide music, tea, coffee, snacks and an all night bar throughout the Improvathon so you can stay for the entire 50hrs if you want!

'It's like nothing you've ever seen before. It's made up on the spot: a hilarious 50hr non-stop soap opera.' - Time Out

'Fearsomely able improvisers' - The Financial Times

'Absolutely incredible. This isn't theatre, it's bloodsports' - Whatsonstage.com

WHEN: 7pm, Friday11th May - until - 10pm, Sunday 13th May

COST: 50hr pass is £50,
an episode pass costs £12.50 (concessions £50).
You can also upgrade your episode pass for only £5 to see another episode.

WHERE: Hoxton Hall, 130 Hoxton Street, Shoreditch, London N1 6SH

It's all pretty incredible down there on Earth. You're a lucky bunch of folk. Way more lucky that the Gargles on Gargle IV... they don't even have breathable air, let alone improv.

Count your blessings and get to a gig.

F'ngarghk g'yaighk'l, friend

London Improv

x

LONDONIMPROV: A REVOLUTION IN COMEDY & THEATRE
Sign up to email updates at LondonImprov@gmail.com

What Improv Taught Me About Life

I think that the most important lessons I have learned in improv have had a huge impact on my regular life. So I thought I would list some choice pointers I have learned and how I think they apply to life in general.

 It’s About Choices Not Ideas

When I started improvising I thought it was about cleverness coming together on stage, now I see it more as just reacting to what is already there. One of the most powerful pieces of advice I got from a teacher was to “love it or hate it, just pick one” in reaction to an offer. You can find out why your character has that reaction as part of the reaction, but either one is better than just doing nothing. It is simple actionable advice and helps me have fun on stage more than any clever idea I come up with. In life I think that choosing to do something is what ultimately gets you places, you often learn loads afterwards whether it was the right or wrong thing to do. Being paralyzed into doing nothing is one of the worst feelings in the world, and it’s easy to talk about grand projects and plans without doing anything about them. Ideas are very seductive and I know that talking about things has often been an excuse for me to not actually do anything about it. I see the same thing in “talky” scenes, two people talk about a scene that would be awesome to watch, but because there are a lot of funny ideas being thrown about they get to fool themselves into thinking they are really doing something.

The real example of this in my life was my choice to do standup for the first time. I was talking about setting a date to do it, then in the middle of that conversation I said “Wait a minute, why am I talking about setting a date to set a date, I will set that date now. I will do standup in the next month,” and I did standup for the first time about 2 weeks later. I would never have done it by talking about it, I needed to make a choice and set myself a deadline. Talking about it was not doing it.

Some Choices are Stronger Than Others 

I have found that playing positive characters usually gets me more places than negative characters, and playing characters that care about other characters is where it all comes together. The obvious opposite of this is the character that doesn’t care. If you play character that doesn’t care about anything you are making it harder on yourself when you improvise. To clarify this point, look at Inspector Clouseau or Basil Fawlty, Imagine if the Inspector didn’t want to solve crimes and sat around the station all day, or if Basil didn’t care about his hotel and sat behind his desk glumly. Suddenly two classic comedy archetypes are just supporting characters. It seems really obvious but it can be very tempting to play a useless policeman who doesn’t want to do anything, and suddenly you’ve put a huge barrier in front of yourself.

In life I think the most recent example of this was when I left a job that involved helping the public in a government office. Due to the limits of civil service funding it meant that everyone was overworked and there was no way to help everybody who needed it. It felt more like pushing people through on a conveyor belt than genuinely helping them. The position was temporary contract, and I knew that the job was obviously not for me long-term, but one of the most frustrating things was how so much cynicism had crept into the workplace. I decided I didn’t want to get cynical about it, and I still wanted to help people that needed it, eventually that led me to volunteering for Samaritans, which has been rewarding experience that teaches me new things all the time. The listening training there has fed back into my improv. So for me the choice to go and do something else instead of walking away and doing nothing was the stronger choice. Be somebody who cares, in improv and real life.

It’s About Patterns, Not the New

A scene filled to the brim with original ideas is like a load of spokes with no rim, there may be interesting shapes to look at but it doesn’t go anywhere. I find scenes where I build up a game or story with another player feel more satisfying than ones that have load of different things going on with no focus. I think supporting the other player by using what they have said or done lets them know you are together on stage, and gives both of you confidence. You find the original stuff after you have both agreed and gone into new territory.

In life this is what convinced me to write this article. I was worried whether this was going to be anything original about improv, but then I realised it doesn’t have to be. Repeating things is what cements them in our minds. There are loads of “What X taught me about Y” precisely because of patterns. We like to compare things and see how they relate. Drawing attention to these patterns is another way of reinforcing our learning. We resist doing what has already been done, but sometimes you need to go round and make that rim so you have a wheel. Another pattern, this point is now complete.

Commitment is All You Have 

Whatever you learn and no matter how many years you practice I think there will always be times when you are standing on stage feeling completely lost or out of place. When you realise you are feeding peanuts to a Nonsense Machine and don’t know why you are doing it, all you can do is commit. You feed those godamned peanuts to that machine like it’s the most important thing in the world, and it suddenly its all fun again. Especially if it was not fun in the beginning, really committing to it is the only way to make it fun. That’s why many scenes flounder for the first half and then somebody finds something interesting and it takes of from the second half. If we just commit to the first thing in the scene we can have a great scene from the very beginning. Why start a scene half-way through when you can avoid all that uncertainty from the beginning?

Similarly in life, whatever you are doing you either commit to it, or you are waiting to bail on it at some point. So that’s why I think it’s important to commit to the things that I do, like improv. I may not have all the skills I need to improvise at the moment, but the only way I can get them is by continually working at it. And that holds for everything I do in life. The alternative is starting your life halfway through.That is something to regret. Putting your heart into what you do is never something to regret.

An incomplete guide to i.O and Chicago

Daniel Harvey, Brighton based improviser (pictured). He went to Chicago to study improv for 5 weeks at iO. He has some advise for the multitude of people going this year, or planning to go some time in the future:...

BEFORE YOU GO
You'll want to fully immerse yourself in the improv community, so make sure you have enough money for shows and for drinks afterwards (the really popular shows sell out, so you won’t get in for free). Immerse yourself in the world of improv: read and listen to all the books, blogs and podcasts you can and re-read/re-listen to them. I made the mistake of only half reading Truth in Comedy [by Charna Halpern] and Improvise [by Mick Napier]. You will be in a better position to learn and you’ll have better questions to ask your teacher.


CLASSES
Turn up on time: I know it's pretty obvious, but very important. No one will tell you off [except maybe Craig Uhler, who'll call you a “boner”], but you will receive subtle yet brutal frowns from your teacher and classmates.

Take notes: 5 weeks mean 5 different teachers, so 5 different unique perspectives on the greatest art form known to man. In my first week, teacher Barry Hite told us: “Everyone has a book to sell, so decide for yourself what is bullshit and what isn’t.” As the weeks go by you’ll find that your teachers will contradict each other. This is no bad thing.

Your notes are your very own improv manual and 10 times more valuable than any published work out there; this is certainly true of mine.

If you have good intentions, but are lazy and miss a week, don't hesitate to ask one of your classmates to borrow their notes: it's important that your notes are as comprehensive as possible.
While it's important to write down all the exercises and advice you get, it's just as important to write personal notes: strengths and weaknesses; What your ‘go tos’ are; what you do too much; what you don’t do etc...

SHOWS
See as many as possible: a lot of them are free, but the popular ones will sell out. T.J and Dave, Cook County Social Club, Improvised Shakespeare Company, 3033: when I was there last year sold out without fail, so buy tickets on the first day for the whole time you are there. There is a rap battle called Haterade: enter it. Go to the Annoyance Theatre: Chicagoland and Messing With A Friend are particularly good [as is the legendary Green Mile jazz bar two doors down]. There is place down the road called the Underground Lounge: it's kind of a dive bar, but on certain days it's where i.O and Second City students play to pretty much no one. It's great! I got to improvise with a few of them and do stand-up. I’m sure if you asked nicely, they would let you perform. It's also a great way to meet other improvisers who are slightly further up the improv ladder than you are, but not so much that they make you go all giggly and shy like T.J will.

By taking notes at shows, you may feel like a weird, overly keen nerd freak. That’s because you are! Remember you are a student and there to learn. I didn't take notes during or after shows; not many people do, but it is recommended. At least half of what you’ll learn is through watching the best improvisers in the world do it live on stage.

FOOD & DRINK
You may find yourself walking into Whole Foods and being excited by the varieties of houmous on offer. Don’t be: I love houmous and was sorely disappointed by the dry, home-made-by-a-homeless person pathetic excuse for what is meant to be the perfect snack.
Americans are known for many great things; houmous is not one of them.

If you are into beer, there is a really good craft brewery in Chicago called Goose Island. They serve 312 at the i.O which is one of theirs. PBR or Pabst is $3 and tastes like a pretty average lager, but they serve it in a jar so that makes it cool. Sam Adams is also a really good American beer.
However, if you would like to see Mitt Romney in the White House, Coors and Bud Light are also available. Mullen's, just a few doors down from i.O, does wicked Long Island Iced Teas: a quick and lethal way to get in the party mood.

I didn’t eat out very much, but there are lots of great places to eat: buy a copy of Timeout Chicago and check out the latest recommendations. There are different areas that sell national food: Chinatown was quite nice; Pilsen is a great Mexican food area.
Cozy is a Thai restaurant around the corner from the I.O. It's relatively cheap and its B.Y.O.B.
Perhaps avoid hot dogs or deep dish pizzas: they are apparently what Chicago is famous for, but they are not particularly interesting and you'll be going home with excess baggage if you overindulge. Case in point: you can get a slice of macaroni and cheese pizza (I shit you not) down the road from the I.O.

TRAVEL & COMMUNICATION
Buy a 30 day CTA pass ($80ish): it will allow you to travel on the Metra and the buses. You can pick one up at the Jewel Osco or Wallgreens pharmacy, as well as in the subway station (but oddly enough not always).
I would also recommend buying a ‘burn phone’ - one that you just use for your time there. I bought a T-Mobile phone for $20 with the $50 unlimited plan plus $10 to call the UK. So $80 in total and well worth it.
Unsurprisingly, I bought it from a T-Mobile shop, one located in Evanston, but I’m sure there are others.

Wi-fi is your friend, internet cafes are not: there is only one and it is not that cheap considering you can get free internet in Starbucks. So bring a device that supports wi-fi.

DOING OTHER STUFF
Chicago is a great city with a lot to see and do: art (the Art Institute of Chicago), theatre (the Steppenwolf), bars, clubs, sports and festivals (Lollapalooza takes place the first weekend in August). But what I would do if I were you - and by God I wish I was - is spend as much time as possible seeing shows, doing workshops (other than those at my own school) and hanging out with improvisers.

For improv, there really is no other place like it. In short, if there is a choice between doing something touristy and doing Improv ALWAYS CHOOSE THE LATTER. ALWAYS.

P.S Chicago gets hot.

Silly String Theory returns this week. Grab your tickets!

Silly String Theory is a ground-breaking improvised play that picks strands from our lives and explores how we meet, part, love and live together.

Silly String Theory returns by invite to the Canal Cafe Theatre, after the first series last December. Devised and directed by Katy Schutte ("...could easily hold [her] own with the likes of Merton, Frost and Jupitus" - Chortle) it features songs and real life monologues, learning what it means to be human and interact with others.

19th-21st & 26th-28th April. Tickets available HERE

CAST:

• Jason Blackwater (The Maydays, Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story)
• Jinni Lyons (8bit, Campionati del Mondo di Match semi-finalist)
• Chris Mead (The Ood Cast, Project Two)
• Jules Munns (Slap Dash Impro Festival, The Improsarios)
• Katy Schutte - (News Revue, Katy & Rach, The Maydays)

Music by: Phil Lunn (News Revue, The Scat Pack)
Directed by Katy Schutte

Thursday 19th - Saturday 21st, Thursday 26th - Saturday 28th April

Time: 7.30pm.

Cost: £10 Tickets available HERE.

Where: The Canal Cafe Theatre, Delamere Terrace, Little Venice, London W2 6ND.

Science and Soliloquies: This Week at The London Improv Comedy Club

Oh, there you are! Running about in the sun with such gay abandon, cherryade stains down your dungarees and lipstick smears across your cheek from when you 'experimented' with mum's make-up.

Keep having fun, won't you? Keep up the larking.

Just, when it gets a bit chilly, pop yourself indoors for some heartwarming improv and joyful comedy. Go on, it's warm. Like adding brandy to your ribena or smoking a cigar in a wendy house.

... kids.

Tuesday 17th April

ARTHUR
and THE ROEZONE

Hey Arthur, what are you doing? Well it looks like you're playing some fun games and doing scenes a bit like what they used to do on Whose Line Is It Anyway?.. Carry on. Be careful. Don't go too fast near the pool.

Ooh, Arthur's my youngest improv-boy, but he has SUCH an imagination. And, gosh, he's funny.

Speaking of improv-boys, just behind Arthur you can see my oldest.. Steve... Steve Roe's been teaching impro for about 7 years and running the Hoopla impro school. He's about to do his first solo show which'll feature stand-up, juggling and all sorts of other things. And he can ride a bike. He's such a clever boy.

Tuesday 17th April

Time: Doors 7:45pm, Show 8pm - 10pm with interval.

Cost: £5 on the door.

Where: The Miller, 96 Snowsfields Road, London, SE1 3SS.

Wednesday 18th April
SARA PASCOE: THE MUSICAL

and THE LONDON IMPROV ALL-STARS

Sara is one of mine too. Ooh, she's funny an' all. And she's written a musical about her own life. It's a preview for her acclaimed solo show at the Edinburgh Fringe festival this year. ‘Sara Pascoe: The Musical’ is the tale of a lady who lived from the 1980's to 2012. It's a great story with some catchy tunes and many morals. Sara's life features many TV appearances including Stand Up For The Week, Campus & Free Agents (C4); The Thick of It & Twenty Twelve (BBC).

Sara Pascoe will be supported by the local gang of impro-hoodies. The London Improv All-Stars are the best of the best improvisers on the estate. They may be tearing up the neighbourhood on scooters and BMXs but they mean you no harm... they just want to play.

Wednesday 18th April

Time: Doors 7:45pm, Show 8pm - 10pm with interval.

Cost: £5 on the door.

Where: The Miller, 96 Snowsfields Road, London, SE1 3SS.

Silly String Theory is a ground-breaking improvised play that picks strands from our lives and explores how we meet, part, love and live together.

Silly String Theory returns by invite to the Canal Cafe Theatre, after the first series last December. Devised and directed by Katy Schutte ("...could easily hold [her] own with the likes of Merton, Frost and Jupitus" - Chortle) it features songs and real life monologues, learning what it means to be human and interact with others.

19th-21st & 26th-28th April. Tickets available HERE

CAST:

• Jason Blackwater (The Maydays, Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story)
• Jinni Lyons (8bit, Campionati del Mondo di Match d’improvvisazione semi-finalist)
• Chris Mead (The Ood Cast, Project Two)
• Jules Munns (Slap Dash Impro Festival, The Improsarios)
• Katy Schutte - (News Revue, Katy & Rach, The Maydays)

Music by: Phil Lunn (News Revue, The Scat Pack)
Directed by Katy Schutte

Thursday 19th - Saturday 21st April

Time: 7.30pm.

Cost: £10 Tickets available HERE.

Where: The Canal Cafe Theatre, Delamere Terrace, Little Venice, London W2 6ND.

We can only recommend all of those. And we do. With vigour.

Looking forward to seeing you there, where we'll put a plaster on your knee, give you a lovely cuddle and tell you it'll all get better.

See you soon, little one.
London Improv
x

LONDONIMPROV: A REVOLUTION IN COMEDY & THEATRE

Sign up to email updates at
LondonImprov@gmail.com

Silly String Theory: Serendipity

"When I moved to London my parents brought up some old furniture, including a bedside cabinet. Inside was a lone pad of PostIt notes, which had my best mate from university's family phone number on it. Weird, I thought, I'll give him a ring, as I'd been abroad for years. He was moving to London soon. One day in a pub I looked up, and saw him on a stool three feet to my left. We laughed. A week later we bumped into each other again. On the third occasion we said 'we have to honour this'. We lived together for five years."
- Dave 7/4/12

Silly String Theory is a ground-breaking improvised play that picks strands from our lives and explores how we meet, part, love and live together.

19th-21st April & 26th-28th April

Time: 7.30pm.

Cost: £10 Tickets available HERE.

Where: The Canal Cafe Theatre, Delamere Terrace, Little Venice, London W2 6ND.

Improv megastars: This Week at The London Improv Comedy Club

Things are hotting up, aren't they?: The weather, the world of improv,.. these thermo-pants.

If you like that sort of thing (pants included), you'll be pretty excited about the forthcoming week. We've got epic adventures and international superstars popping on down to our stage at The Miller.

That's pretty hot.

If you don't like that sort of thing, we'll make sure we switch the air-conditioning on.

Tuesday 10th April

RED LORRY, YELLOW LORRY
and IMAGINE IF YOU WILL

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. We forgive him. He's a good enough chap, and everyone makes mistakes. We're not sure about his girlfriend though, she sells sea shells on the seashore. To our mind, that's a terrible place to sell them when anyone can find them just metres away.
Ha! Tongue-twister fun.
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry is a new improvised musical. Join them for their debut show, and bring your junk mail along as they'll be creating a musical story from it.

And they'll be followed by the delightful Imagine If You Will who'll improvise a fantastic adventure of magic and jazz. And other things.

Tuesday 10th April

Time: Doors 7:45pm, Show 8pm - 10pm with interval.

Cost: £5 on the door.

Where: The Miller, 96 Snowsfields Road, London, SE1 3SS.

Wednesday 11th April
HAPPY PLACE

with CRUMBS!

Ask a lot of prominent improvisers what their favourite improv group is and you'll frequently get the immediate reply: "Crumbs!". For proof, check this article.

Crumbs are Stephen Sim and Lee White, and they've been improvising together since the early 1990's. They're known for their cinematic storytelling, their absurd characters and their laid back, lo-fi style of performance.
People also think they're funny.

We are massively excited to have them. Like... ridiculously. It's the equivalent of Frank Oz and Jim Henson doing a Punch & Judy show at the Tooting Bec Lido.

They will be supported by Musical Comedy offerings from duo:
Horse And Louis, and stand-up from Gary Tro ("a great line in anecdotal, narrative based stand up" ***** What's On Stage).

Wednesday 11th April

Time: Doors 7:45pm, Show 8pm - 10pm with interval.

Cost: £5 on the door.

Where: The Miller, 96 Snowsfields Road, London, SE1 3SS.

Ooh, also, we thought we'd let you know that tickets for this year's London 50-hour Improvathon have just gone on sale. A 50-hour non-stop improvised comedy set in Ancient Greece during the 2012 BC games.
The cast includes some of the finest improvisers from around the world: Canada, Australia, India, Norway and Holland are all represented as well as the cream of the UK crop!
And London Improv's very own Jonathan Monkhouse will be lighting improviser for the whole thing (gulp).

Friday 11th May - Sunday 13th May

Time: Episodes start on every odd hour throughout the weekend (7pm, 9pm, 11pm, 1am, etc). Each episode lasts 1 hour 40 minutes.

Our special family episode is at 11am on Sunday 13th May.

Cost: 50hr pass is £50 (£40 early bird*),

an episode pass costs £12.50 (£10 early bird* & concession).

You can also upgrade your episode pass for only £5 to see another episode.

Where: Hoxton Hall, 130 Hoxton Street, Shoreditch, London N1 6SH.

Mega.

So grease up those surfboards, get your bikinis on, and get yourself to the warmest, friendliest form of comedy there is. (It's improv, by the way).

Yeah!
London Improv
x

LONDONIMPROV: A REVOLUTION IN COMEDY & THEATRE

Sign up to email updates at
LondonImprov@gmail.com

Silly String Theory: Serendipity 7

"I recently got a motorbike back to roadworthy order after it'd sat in the garage for nearly a year. Proudly mentioning this on various social networking sites was responded to by two kinds of people. One kind telling me to be careful, the others enquiring about the bike. An Irish chap, Neil, I met recently at an improv workshop was one with such enquiries. "What bike have you got?" he asked, "I've got a Honda Deauville."
"No way!" I responded. "I used to have a Deauville. I bought It from an ex-Irish bike cop!.. I loved that bike. Now I've just got a little 125cc Chopper."
"My first bike was a 125 chopper," says he, "All my Irish bike-cop friends ride Deauvilles."

I proceeded to send him a picture of my first bike; a Yamaha Virago. "That was my second bike," he replied, "... same paint job."
"Next you'll tell me you had a Bandit or a SV650." I suggested, knowing this is where this would end...
"I nearly had a Bandit. I also nearly had an RT1200," he told me.
"Yep. I looked into getting an RT1200 at one point. Specifically that. But then again I nearly bought a Mazda MX-5 a couple of weeks ago." At this point I wondered if there was such a thing as a 'Bike Twin'.
"Oh, I had an MX-5 before my current car," Neil said.

... 'Car twins?'

"I didn't buy it in the end. I decided to stick with my boring-but-practical Renault Laguna," ... no-one likes Lagunas, I thought.
"That's what car I have now... I'm going to have a conversation with my parents," he wrote.

Yep."
- Jonathan 7/4/12

Silly String Theory is a ground-breaking improvised play that picks strands from our lives and explores how we meet, part, love and live together.

19th-21st April & 26th-28th April

Time: 7.30pm.

Cost: £10 Tickets available HERE.

Where: The Canal Cafe Theatre, Delamere Terrace, Little Venice, London W2 6ND.

Silly String Theory: Serendipity 5

"I was on the set of the TARDIS the other day. No big deal. Sometimes I'm on the set of my favourite television programme in the world. No big deal. It happens. Get over it. Anyway, I met a tall Canadian. He was tall and good looking and garrulous. Like you expect them to be. He had an easy going way about him and smelt of maple. We got talking. About halfway through the conversation I was struck by something, an intuition I guess. "Are you an improvisor?" I asked. It turned out that not only was he an improvisor but he worked with one of my favourite Improv troupes, Die Nasty AND we had friends in common. And yet we had met on the set of a time machine in far off Cardiff, strangers in a crowd who struck up a random conversation. Yesterday I got a text 'Going to catch a Improv show near London Bridge tomorrow. Want to come?' - I told him I would. It was my show."
- Chris 5/4/12

Silly String Theory is a ground-breaking improvised play that picks strands from our lives and explores how we meet, part, love and live together.

19th-21st April & 26th-28th April

Time: 7.30pm.

Cost: £10 Tickets available HERE.

Where: The Canal Cafe Theatre, Delamere Terrace, Little Venice, London W2 6ND.

Silly String Theory: Serendipity 4

"Dear Gramps,
Today is the 4th April and would have been your 87th birthday. I realised yesterday that you are the only person of whose birthdays I have distinct memories. I remember you turning 66 when I was little and then thinking for years that you were 66 as I had not really grasped the concept of ageing. I remember your 70th, when everyone clubbed together and bought you a flight in a Tiger Moth, your 75th at The Winterbourne Arms and your 80th, when I made you a chocolate cake and Mummy and I managed to fit 80 gold candles on it. She had to hold my hair back as we presented it to you so that I didn't catch fire.
So many numbers. In 3 days, you will have been dead for 6 months. So many numbers.
Marcus Aurelius said in 46 AD that "everything in eternity is of like forms and comes around in a circle". I find this quite comforting, that everyone has felt this way before. But Professor Brian Cox tells us of the arrow of time, constantly moving forward. I don't know how those two fit together.
So many numbers, when all that really matters is days, nights and seasons. To me, your birthday has always heralded the spring.

Lots of love, Jinni xxx

P.S. You were right, whisky is actually quite nice."
- Jinni 4/4/12

Silly String Theory is a ground-breaking improvised play that picks strands from our lives and explores how we meet, part, love and live together.

19th-21st April & 26th-28th April

Time: 7.30pm.

Cost: £10 Tickets available HERE.

Where: The Canal Cafe Theatre, Delamere Terrace, Little Venice, London W2 6ND.

Silly String Theory: Serendipity 3

"I've lived in a few places in Brighton but my last move was founded more out of desperation than choice. I had to move into the first available house I could afford and where I now live is it. Upon moving in and meeting my housemates, it transpired one was girlfriend to the brother of one of my long term improv students, and another was best friend to one of my best friends from drama school from when they both lived on the Isle of White! "
- Jason 3/4/12

Silly String Theory is a ground-breaking improvised play that picks strands from our lives and explores how we meet, part, love and live together.

19th-21st April & 26th-28th April

Time: 7.30pm.

Cost: £10 Tickets available HERE.

Where: The Canal Cafe Theatre, Delamere Terrace, Little Venice, London W2 6ND.

Silly String Theory: Serendipity 2

"I used to live in Kentish town, near to a very well known actor who I shall not name. A frequenter of the bookshops on the high street, I bought many odd books there. One of them was a novel about an academic discovering from old papers that she is the last of a long line of vampires. The book contained three things: a photo of a beautiful young woman, who turned out to be the actor’s daughter, a receipt from a bookshop in Venice, and a piece of headed paper with a list of films on it. I guess the ones he crossed out were the ones he turned down. "
- Jule 2/4/12

Silly String Theory is a ground-breaking improvised play that picks strands from our lives and explores how we meet, part, love and live together.

19th-21st April & 26th-28th April

Time: 7.30pm.

Cost: £10 Tickets available HERE.

Where: The Canal Cafe Theatre, Delamere Terrace, Little Venice, London W2 6ND.

The past, the present, the future: This week at The London Improv Comedy Club

'Allo sweetheart, how y'diddlin'?

Firstly, that thing we said yesterday on Twitter... that was an April Fool, wasn't it? Yeah. We're not leaving you.

London needs a place where you can see a huge range of really top-notch improvised comedy and theatre, so we're sticking around. You can see other good improv elsewhere, true, but no-where else has such a brilliant selection of high quality acts as right here, at The Miller, twice a week.

Speaking of which.. secondly:

Tuesday 3rd April

ARTHUR
and DO NOT ADJUST YOUR STAGE

The Shortform power-monkeys of Arthur bound up on stage to energise you with their quickfire games and scenes, and increase your potassium with an endless supply of mirth-bananas. The furry little fellas have a bunch of new ways to play with improv. One of them may (or may not) involve a swinging tyre.

When they're too tyred (heh) to continue and the cast are returned to their cages it's time to come and feel the noise. Do Not Adjust Your Stage create an evening of televisual entertainment way better than any night spent at home weeping into your TV Times. Why put yourself through an episode of Emmerdale Farm or The Voice when a handful of comedians can create something much more satisfying right in front of you. In person?

Tuesday 3rd April

Time: Doors 7:45pm, Show 8pm - 10pm with interval.

Cost: £5 on the door.

Where: The Miller, 96 Snowsfields Road, London, SE1 3SS.

Wednesday 4th April
AUSTENTATIOUS

with PROJECT TWO

Austentatious are pretty much the best thing of the 18th Century, but thank Dickens! they exist in our time. Join The Milk Monitors as they improvise a Jane Austen novel based on your suggestions, and - I'm not going to bother hiding my favouritism - they are amazing. Think all the good things of a costume drama: romance, snappy outfits, pipe-smoking and heaving bosoms.. and add all the best parts of a comedy show, as six awesome improvisers kick bustle.

Cast includes:

Fosters Award Nominee - Cariad Lloyd, Hackney Empire New Act Of The Year Finalist - Rachel Parris, and Rap-God - Joe Morpurgo. Yeah.. that's some caliber, right there.

Specifically to screw with chronology, Austentatious will be supported by a new show from Chris Mead (8bit, Andrew & The Slides of Chaos) and Jonathan Monkhouse (me). We debut our improvised science-fiction show (cue tummy butterflies). Join us aboard the Project Two facility when we can access any piece of history since the year 2017. Will you see the Great Spice Wars of the Draxon Colony, or will you witness the first time-travel device accidentally built in Jim Atkins' Stockwell Garage? Pop along and find out.

Wednesday 4th April

Time: Doors 7:45pm, Show 8pm - 10pm with interval.

Cost: £5 on the door.

Where: The Miller, 96 Snowsfields Road, London, SE1 3SS.

So there we go.. it's action-packed. No joke. Although there will be jokes. Plenty of them. That's kinda the way we roll.

Hey, while you're here, why not sign the petition to get "Best Improvisation Act" to be part of the Chortle comedy awards next year? There are no arguments against it. Try and think of one.... you can't, can you? And you are a mighty intelligent and, let's face it, very attractive human.

Yes, I just flirted with you. En Masse.

See you soon, luvverrr.
London Improv

LONDONIMPROV: A REVOLUTION IN COMEDY & THEATRE

Sign up to email updates at
LondonImprov@gmail.com

Silly String Theory: Serendipity 1

"London is a massive, sprawling place. You never really bump into people you know like you do in a small town. But, like there are 8 degrees of Kevin Bacon, there is 1 degree of improvisers. In Italy at the Match Improvvisazione Teatrale, Jinni and I met two English improvisers in Piza who have mutual improv friends in London, despite the fact that they haven't been in the country for years. Teaching a course last weekend, one of my students who used to live in London lived in the flat next to the one I live in now. One degree."
- Katy 1/4/12

Silly String Theory is a ground-breaking improvised play that picks strands from our lives and explores how we meet, part, love and live together.

19th-21st April & 26th-28th April

Time: 7.30pm.

Cost: £10 Tickets available HERE.

Where: The Canal Cafe Theatre, Delamere Terrace, Little Venice, London W2 6ND.