#ChicaGoUK: Sarah Castell

Sarah is off to Chicago soon. Bid her well and read about her expectations. Here are the words:

Tell us a bit about yourself..

Hullo! I am Sarah and I usually do social research, and working with groups to help them be creative, and teaching slightly left-field courses to children involving art and history and stuff. And then I do as much improvising as I can eat.

I am at the moment in the group Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and we’re having fun with short form singing improvising at the moment, with some other formats to come later in the year. I dabble in the Spontaneity Shop group Banjo Lizard as well.

What's the best improv call-out you've ever heard?

I have the memory of a gnat so can only remember ones from the last seven days. A nice one recently was: What does he want? "To climb Mount Everest". And what’s getting in his way? "Llamas!”

Which improv course are you doing, and what made you choose that one?

I am doing the IO 5-weeker because I want to just do nothing but improvising, for days, and days, and days, and days, and days, until it all froths up out of my laughing face.

When/how did you start planning your trip?

I realised earlier in the year that I might be able to swing it, and performed a cunning salary negotiation. I get time off FREE!! As long as I, er, take a pay cut, relinquish some job perks, and work more hours. In your face, The Man!!!

What are you most excited about?

Refer to earlier answer about the days of improvising and the frothing and the face etc.

Are there any shows you HAVE to see while you're over there?

Want to see Baby Wants Candy. A lot.

What are you going to do in chicago when you're not improvising?

Ride around on a bicycle belonging to an improvising bloke, who says I can borrow it. If it’s an improvising bike it will have the benefit that I can drive it through things if I forget to concentrate on where it is.

How do you think the trip will change you?

I’d like to be more flexible, more confident as an improviser and hopefully in life too, shake off some of the horrible office-y cautiousness that is so easy to sink into.

My husband also says I will appreciate him more when I get home, as nobody will be around to change my lightbulbs for me or troubleshoot my computer in Chicago.

Do you think you'll go back another time?

Depends what it’s like! If it’s brilliant, then yes!

If you could name a new impro group anything you like, what would it be?

When we started the Red Lorry team some people wanted to call it the Massive Fascists. Tempting though it was, I thought that was wrong in many ways, so I imposed my iron will and crushed them like a tyrannous despot. You know, I still don’t know why they wanted to call it that.


Sarah plays in Red Lorry Yellow Lorry in London.
Follow all the improvisers at #ChicaGoUK

Baby Wants Candy - A Competition

London Improv have a pair of tickets for each evening performance of Baby Wants Candy, 7-10th September 2011 at the Leicester Square Theatre for you to win.

Simply send an email with the subject line "London Improv Competition" to bwclondon@gmail.com - include the night you wish to go and your suggestion for a title of a musical Baby Wants Candy could perform.
We’ll let you know after the weekend if you’ve won. Otherwise buy your tickets at BWC Tickets.

Don't know much about Baby Wants Candy? Read this for a bit and you'll have an idea of how cool they are:
"It was the summer of 2001 and I was at the Edinburgh Festival for the first time in my life. Stepping out onto the Royal Mile it felt almost instantly like I’d come home. We have a lot of knife throwers and annoying student clown acts in my family.
And we all drink heavily.

I was operating sound for my student Musical Theatre Society’s production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood and without the burden of performing and all its attendant nerve jangles, I found I had time to see a lot of shows. Originally, I had intended to see different productions each day but that was before I went, on a whim, to see Baby Wants Candy: The Improvised Musical. One hour of jaw-dropping, gut-busting, mind-blowing theatre later and I was hooked for the rest of the run.

Because they made it up.

Every night, every performance, an entire one hour musical spawned from a single audience title suggestion. Unbelievable. I had never seen anything like it. This mad, talented bunch of improvisors seemed superhuman to me on almost every level. The precision of their comedy timing, the beauty of their harmonies, the deft sweep of their narrative. Every night I wondered if this was the performance where it was all going to fail in a spectacular heap of broken melodies and loose plot ends. Every night they seemed to reach greater heights. It made Whose Line is it Anyway? look like a playground game.

I wanted to do what they did. I wanted to be them.

But this was 2001 and returning to London, inspired and evangelical about this new art form, I found no-one willing or able to help me build an improvisational nirvana in the heart of our nation’s capital. Perhaps they were there, the fledgling UK Impro community, but there was no way for us to find each other. The internet was a baby too, it lacked sophistication. It was basically just the US Military complex and Hamster Dance (link: http://www.webhamster.com/).

Ten years later, I feel part of a supportive community of UK improvisors of immense talent and ambition. I’ve spent years perfecting my Yes ands... & Who, What, Wheres?, my edits, walk ons & follow mes. I’ve seen shows of breath-taking skill and courage, amazing evenings full of laughter and daring. But for me, still, there’s nothing like Baby Wants Candy. There are acts who approach their musical dexterity and others who are arguably as funny, still others who are able to marshal character and plot with the same aplomb. But all together at the same time? While giving you sweets? No, siree, Bob.

There isn’t another act like them. The catalyst for my whole mad, brilliant impro odyssey. They are an institution and an inspiration and every improvisor should see them at least once.

So I guess it’s lucky, on reflection, that they happen to be in town for 5 shows."

- Chris Mead

Baby Wants People Candy

Edinburgh Festival Interns Needed

Baby Wants Candy are a truly amazing Improv troupe from Chicago who crash the Edinburgh Fringe every few years and blow everyone away with their Improvised Musical Show (now with added full band awesomeness). This year they’re back again and quite excitingly they need some help.

Okay. Let’s get one thing straight from the start. These guys are incredible, they've had five star reviews from The Scotsman (which is the Edinburgh Fringe equivalent of scoring the winning goal in the World Cup final while blindfolded and surrounded by lions ie. very rare and very impressive).

They’re looking for interns to come up to Edinburgh for the full three weeks (if possible) and help with stuff like flyering, ticketing and promoting the show. This is obviously an amazing opportunity, especially if you’re an improviser and want to hang out with some world class talent.

What you’ll get:
• Housing in a nice flat near the Royal Mile for the duration of the festival
• Access to all Assembly Room shows for FREE
• A place on all the Improvisation workshops that Baby Wants Candy are running while at the festival
• The chance to live and work with a group of performers at the top of their game who actually make a living from improvising

Did I mention they sold out their entire run last time? This is where you come in ...

What you’ll be doing:
• Flyering (approx. 3-4 hours a day) (it’s very easy to promote a 5 star show, especially when you have sweets to give out)
• Helping on the doors at the show
• Small errands and administrational tasks as needed

So there you go. A heart-stoppingly good opportunity and a chance to go to the Edinburgh Festival without losing a lot of money. All you need to provide is your travel to and from Scotland and buckets of enthusiasm

"I took on an intern role in 2003 with BWC and it was one of the best summers of my young life so I can’t recommend this highly enough. I went up again with them last year and they're the most gracious, talented, funny group of people you could ever hope to meet." - Chris Mead
Drop me a line ASAP if you’re interested or if you have any questions - christophermead@mac.com.