Not exactly a holiday

That's it. London Improv is truly on a break from doing London-based shows (for about 6 weeks).

Music Box had their last London outing last night, at their regular summer gig as part of the Zoo Lates at London Zoo. That was fun. The impro-gods were smiling down on us and provided us with the best audience of the entire run; about 80 people standing in the London Zoo aquarium, watching us dick about for 15 minutes. We'd found that people who had paid for penguins and meerkats weren't hugely enamoured by a 15-minute version of our musical, so we've been doing more short-form stuff and it's been going down really well. They much preferred monkey-gags to musical character journeys. Gibbon-knobs.

Speaking of short-form, the Great Big Send-Off was a blast. About 30 improvisers ended up being in the show, all adding their own little bit of brilliance, all playing together in a supportive and friendly way. Everyone was in high spirits and there to have a really good time. Which we all did. The main thing I was worried about was anyone who came who wasn't an improviser, that all they would experience would be a big cliquey in-joke that they couldn't be a part of.

Not so, it turned out. I was constantly keeping an eye out, and saw them laughing a lot. When in a game of 185, a call-out ended up being "185 improvisers walk into a bar..." they seemed to appreciate that I made reference to how geeky most of the jokes were:

"185 improvisers all walk into a bar at the same time, and Keith Johnstone shouts NO BLOCKING"
"185 improvisers walk into a bar, and one says "hey Dave" and other says "Hey Mike" and then they establish that they're in a pub, before working out what to do next before some sort of platform shift upsets it."
"185 improvisers walk into a bar and alienate everyone else in the room."

I chatted to some of the non-improvisers afterwards and they said they wanted us to go on for another hour, so that's a pretty good sign.

So this season is over now. Over with audience wanting more, which is very pleasing. They will get it, we will be back on the 13th September with an even more exciting line-up of improv, comedy and more. Until then, it's all about Edinburgh and the biggest arts festival in the world. I will be up there with Music Box (get your tickets quick, they're selling!!), and running tech for the fabulous Cariad Lloyd (FREE GIG... come!). In my spare time, I will be on the hunt for new acts for the London Improv comedy nights at The Miller, and if that all doesn't take my life I hope to be providing you with reviews of as many EdFringe impro shows as possible.

Tasks.

In the meantime, I should be washing some clothes and generally having a bit of a think about what I take to Edinburgh in three days time. Three days time. Three days time. Three days time. Three days time. Gulp.

Hope to see you there, as long as I'm not crying.

Kiss!
- Jonathan Monkhouse, editor.