What I Learned in the London 50 Hour Improvathon

... As Dizniz Al'Adin in the
2013 Improvathon 

By Jonathan Monkhouse

I am afraid of heights. I get vertigo when my body is not surrounded by very specific guidelines that, when boiled down, are based on two factors: 1) My own physical ability, and 2) My trust in the objects being used to support me.

I'm unfit. Chubby even. In places. If I fall, I'm not strong enough to grab something and pull myself back up. I couldn't hang from the branch of a tree safe in the knowledge that if things went wrong I could swing myself to safety like a howler monkey. Abseiling. Why the hell do people do that?

Found this in a lamp

I'm alright with some things, though. Actually I'm fairly okay if I'm up high on a genie-lift (pictured), because I know the tests that these things go through to make them safe. But a plank of wood hanging at a precarious angle on a couple of scaffold bars high over the stage at Hoxton Hall, where you have to go if you want to hang any back-lights. Doing that is not hilarious.

This fear is potentially crippling in multiple ways. Yes, the physical injury I would sustain when the ladder collapses beneath me and I fall 30' onto my face.. but more present is the fact that I earn a fair proportion of my living from working up high. As a live events technician I'm often up a ladder focussing blisteringly hot lights or hanging bulky projectors or heavy speaker stacks, or a 60ft banner from the front of an old crumbling theatre while wind and rain try to knock me to the pavement. Often under time pressure, often in venues that were never designed for ladders or rigging or people who need a cool ambient temperature. But it's part of my job. It's how I get to buy useful things like croissants.

So I have to do it. I have to do it. The croissants compel me.

And I'm compeled to do improv. I love it at least as much as a French breakfast pastry, and it is the most exciting, most liberating, most extreme sport I can think of. It is more petrifying than abseiling, and more rewarding than three wishes from a genie. So fuck it, I do it.

Cairo, 1926. Improvised. Epic.

While I was growing up my Dad often used the phrase, "It's not the fall that'll kill you, it's the hard bit at the bottom." .. one of my earliest discoveries of humour in the Monkhouse gene-pool. I believe there are others. And others. As advice, though, it didn't really help me with my fear.

The London Improvathon was terrifying. It has a fairly epic reputation amongst audience and performers alike. People fly in from round the world to be a part of it. It is performed in a 150 year old, lofty venue with a rich theatrical history. The stage towers over the audience giving any performer an instant status way higher than any single human deserves.

This was my first performance in the London 50. I've performed in other Improvathons in London, Liverpool and Bristol, and they have been totally fun and enjoyable. But this was my first London 50. And I was entering in the 30th hour after watching from the sound-desk for the first portion of the show, watching the very talented folk around me create the magical world that I was to jump into later on.

Entering my first scene felt like falling. From a great great height. I haven't felt that in an improv show for years.

Intimidated much? Yeah. Nervous? Feeling lost when I'm in a scene? Out of control? Yeah. Paranoid from being awake for the last 50+ hours? Not. Helping.

Lighting-tech Damian Robertson with director Adam
Meggido: sitting in the dark, in front of a computer
screen, in a warm room, concentrating, for 50 hours.
The hardest two jobs in the room.  

Learny thing number 1: Being awake that long is mental. Mental. But that's a given with a 50 hour show. I don't really need to talk about that, it's too obvious a part of the experience. Yes, it's painful, but I knew exactly how painful it would be. I've done it before when I operated lighting for the entire London 50 last year - which is, by the way, a nightmare and all credit to Damian who lit the whole show this time. The sleep deprivation is way harder on the desk than it is on the cast. Oh my god. At least the cast get to move around occasionally. And have adrenalin surges.

The biggest thing I learned from the Improvathon is about how much you take on stage with you.

Learny thing number 2: While it's an improviser's aim to be creating on the spot, on the stage, right there... unless you know how to play the Die-Nasty Improvathon format this is really hard. So I tell you now, with hope that if you ever get to do one, you are better prepared than I was. My biggest discovery leads to this:

DO NOT THINK ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER WHEN YOU ARE OFF STAGE.

Don't do it. You'll want to, but don't. It's a piece of advice I have heard from much more experienced improvathon players, but it never quite took hold until I experienced it first-hand. Sadly I learned its importance too late for this 50. If I get to do it again, at least I'll know.

Lately in my Improv life I have been used to freeform improvising. Little or no "format". Where the whole thing happens with you on stage, or just off-stage looking to come on and support at any given moment. It is your own personal instinct that takes you onto the stage, it is your own feeling for the story that drives it, and there is no time to excogitate the precise direction of the show because you are right there in its midst the whole way through.

Support group scenes have a certain double-resonance with
exhausted performers. 

With the way the Improvathon format works, you spend a huge amount of time off stage. It might be 45-60 minutes between your scenes. Stop, start, stop, start. And it is the director's decision when you enter, who you're entering with, and (often) what task you're going to complete while you're there. Its almost short-form in that way. That is, a predetermined set of actions that you are to 'play' during the next few minutes.

Yes, you can be off stage enjoying the scenes the other improvisers are doing, and sometimes running on to help in crowd scenes or to be scenery. This is good. Great. That is a very fun thing. However, my biggest problem was that I was spending these long stretches of time also thinking about my character: How my story was and should be progressing. How good/bad my last scene was. The fact that I haven't found my rhythm with this show yet. I'm exhausted. I have to prove that I deserve to be here. Are these thoughts led by sleep deprivation, or are they justified? I know I'm a better improviser than that last scene I did. Why can't I get comfortable on this crazy stage? Where do I want my character to go next?

That's it. That last one. That's the most problematic of all. DO NOT THINK ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER WHEN YOU ARE OFF STAGE. All this does is put obstacles in the way for your next scene. It led to me walking on stage for each of my scenes with a list of objectives that I wanted to achieve, which did nothing but get in the way of the scene that I was actually performing. My own thoughts had infected everything I was doing and despite the awesome offers being made for me by other improvisers, my brain had already decided the course my character should take and it was hard to deviate from that.

So.. DO NOT THINK ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER WHEN YOU ARE OFF STAGE.
This, of course, is so important in any improv performance. It's just harder to avoid when you're given an hour to think in between your scenes, and you've been awake since 6am two days ago.

Salvador Dali (Mark Meer) presents his finest work.
Historically accurate. 

DO NOT THINK ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER WHEN YOU ARE OFF STAGE.
When you inhabit the same character for 20+ hours you really begin to care about them rather a lot, and you want them to achieve something cool. But all you are doing is planning. You don't want to be doing this. You know it's wrong, that's why you perform improv.

DO NOT THINK ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER WHEN YOU ARE OFF STAGE.
Your character only exists in the on-stage moments. Anything else, is nothing. Forget it. A predetermined plot is limiting, not freeing. One of the most enjoyable characters in the show was Ernest Hemingway, played by Die-Nasty's Jamie Cavanagh, who had barely done any research into the real life of Hemingway. This was a great decision and meant that Hemingway was one of the most fun characters to watch. Remember when Hemingway donned a cocktail dress, became part of the feminist alliance and revealed himself to be from Crete? Brilliant.

As the dust settles on our version of 1920's Cairo, there seems to be a widespread opinion that this was the best London 50 ever. A massive part of that success, I think, is down to the simplicity of the overarching storyline. It was essentially just a backdrop to much more interesting stuff. I don't think most of the audience could give a fuck whether the overall plot makes sense; especially the majority who aren't even there for more than 4-6 hours. For them, the 50 hour plot is irrelevant and unimportant. People want to see relationships between people and funny things. Who gives a crap whether a comedy show is historically accurate?

DO NOT THINK ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER WHEN YOU ARE OFF STAGE.
God, it seems so obvious now. Now that I am rested, lucid, and blessed with hindsight. I totally fucked up a scene in the last 6 hours of the show because I did not know this. Because I took too much on stage with me, stuff that I'd been throwing around in my mind for 45 minutes. Its not Improv, and it doesn't make your scene better. It makes it worse.

DO NOT THINK ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER WHEN YOU ARE OFF STAGE.
Just. Don't.

Don't think.

Dana Anderson of Die-Nasty said of the 50 hour, "It's the most intense improv workshop you'll ever do." He's right. Not many workshops leave me emotionally scarred, exhausted, and having learnt a lesson with that level of potency. DO NOT THINK ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER WHEN YOU ARE OFF STAGE. Alright, alright. I get it.

In a few months I'm going to be in a 34-hour in Liverpool. Similar format. I'll be giving myself one rule from the beginning (see above). I'll arrive with a costume and a character name, as required. The rest is just enjoying the scene that I'm in at any given moment, feeling privileged to be playing with wonderful performers, and getting to do something way more fun than most people get to do.

Improvathon photos courtesy of Scarab Pictures and Sam Carpenter.

Improvised Knifefight Lessons - #2

Jamie as Hercules in London Improvathon 2012

Character

Character, Character... CHARACTER!

Characters are the lifeblood of stories. Formats, plot lines, twists and turns all mean very little if we do not care about the characters who inhabit them.

In this three hour intensive, we will be discussing and exercising different means of creating and portraying distinct, dynamic and practical characters in improv scenes and formats.

Jamie "Knifefight" Cavanagh is an Canadian actor, writer, comedian, and professional improvisor and is a graduate of the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting program at the University of Alberta.

Jamie has performed in festivals and cities all over the world including: The London Improvathon [London UK], World Domination Theatresports Tournament [Atlanta GA], The Chcago Improv Festival [Chicago IL], Uprfront Theatre [Bellingham WA], The Saint Valentines Day Massacre [Vancouver BC], Toronto Improv Festival [Toronto ON], the CRUMBs [Winnipeg MB] and has taught as a guest instructor at London’s renowned London Academy of Musical and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA). You might remember his as Hercules from last year's improathon. You should.

COST: £30
WHEN: 7-10pm, Wednesday 9th January 
WHERE: The Nursery, Arch 61, off Great Suffolk Street and parallel to Union St. SE1 0EU

NEAREST TUBE: Southwark

This class has very limited places, book now by emailing improvsupertime@gmail.com

Payments may be made in advance to Paul Foxcroft, email for details. 

Also, Tuesday the 8th - https://www.facebook.com/events/532185313465931/ Jamie teaches this. 

Improvised Knifefight Lessons - #1

Canadian Short Form

As we all know, Canada is an enormous block of ice perched atop the promontory of the western brow, and is a land of snow, hockey, and beer. You may not be aware, however, that it is also the home and birthplace of the world's most famous short-form improv formats.

In this three hour intensive, we will learn the shit out of the importance of short form improv, crucial and often forgotten improv techniques, and focusing especially on exercising short-form values in longer improv sets.

Get ready to ride the walrus!

Jamie "Knifefight" Cavanagh is an Canadian actor, writer, comedian, and professional improvisor and is a graduate of the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting program at the University of Alberta.

Jamie has performed in festivals and cities all over the world including: The London Improvathon [London UK], World Domination Theatresports Tournament [Atlanta GA], The Chcago Improv Festival [Chicago IL], Uprfront Theatre [Bellingham WA], The Saint Valentines Day Massacre [Vancouver BC], Toronto Improv Festival [Toronto ON], the CRUMBs [Winnipeg MB] and has taught as a guest instructor at London’s renowned London Academy of Musical and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA). You might remember his as Hercules from last year's 50-hour Improvathon. You should. 

COST: £30

WHEN: 7-10pm, Tuesday 8th January 

WHERE: The Nursery, 

Arch 61, 

off Great Suffolk Street and parallel to Union St. SE1 0EU

NEAREST TUBE: Southwark

This class has very limited places, book now by emailing improvsupertime@gmail.com

Payments may be made in advance to Paul Foxcroft, email for details. 

Also, on Wednesday the 9th Jamie has another class - https://www.facebook.com/events/326618084117971/?context=create

The London 50-hour Improvathon is nearly here!

There are only a couple of days left to get the Earlybird Season Passes for the full 50 hours, so if you fancy the challenge/experience of 50 straight hours of improvised theatre, we'd highly recommend you book them now. And we reckon you should do the full 50 hours. Here's why:

‘It's like nothing you’ve seen before. It’s made up on the spot: a hilarious 50-hour non-stop soap opera. Early morning joggers and late-night clubbers unite!’ Time Out

This year the London Improvathon sees about 50 improvisers creating a massive piece of theatre set in Cairo in 1926. The classiest tourist destination of the day filled with adventurous icons, the discovery of Tutenkhamen's tomb, shady back street dealing, the curse of the mummy... all these, I'm sure, referred to with as much historic accuracy as you should expect. It's a classic, sumptuous setting with epic possibilities.

The cast will include some of the best improvisers around; a whole bunch of brilliant UK-based performers including a handful of Showstoppers, a bucket of Austentatious, most members of ProjectTwo and more.
They will be joined by some phenomenal folk from Die-Nasty and Rapid Fire theatre companies in Canada, and more besides.

'Fearsomely able improvisers.'
Ian Shuttleworth, The Financial Times.

The 50 hour Improvathon is a brilliant experience for the audience as well as the cast. After this long without sleep or rest the mind will start playing tricks on you. Performers tap into weird and wonderful parts of their psyche, and a whole new way of improvising arrives. You will see improvisers battle their own wits, lose their minds, then regain them in glorious victory.

And you as audience experience the same. It's cathartic, it's madness, it's brilliant. Take it from me, I've watched the last two all the way through. Once as an audience member, once as the lighting technician. There's not really anything I can compare it to. You have to try it for yourself.

Audience members who are there for the full 50 hours are regarded by the cast as a massively important part of the community of the show. The Improvathon is very much a two-way process, and the insane, sleep-deprived community that emerges bleary-eyed at the end are made of heroes. Cast and audience alike.

'It’s absolutely incredible. This isn’t theatre, it’s bloodsports.'
Michael Coveney, Whatsonstage.com

So come along. Challenge yourself. It's like nothing you've experienced before. And if you're a fan of improvisation, it's definitely something you should chalk up on your list.
Hoxton Hall is an ace venue for this show. It's got a balcony which tends to be inhabited by the 50-hour audience members; a lively community of its own, with sleeping bags and caffeine-based snacks a-plenty. It's brilliant.

Tickets are available here, starting at £7 per episode.

See you there!

Jacob Banigan: a Lover of English

LondonImprov will be providing you with regular interviews with excellent people from the impro community, because we like you very much. To show you how serious we are about it we flew Jonathan to Vienna for our first one. Okay, that's not entirely true (he was out there for work) …

JACOB BANIGAN began improvising over 20 years ago in Edmonton, Canada, with the revered Rapid Fire Theatre. He's since moved to Austria, where he performs regularly with Theatre Im Bahnhof in Graz and The English Lovers in Vienna. He travels all over the world to teach and perform.

How did you discover improv?
JB: I first saw it when I was a teenager, when my sister told me to go see TheatreSports. I always knew I wanted to perform, and when I saw improv I realized the players were really enjoying themselves and the audience was with them the whole way. The world of stand-up looked pretty nasty from a distance, and when you're in the comedy world, you see that it really is.

What do you really love about improv?
With improv, the audience accepts all your ideas. If you say you’re 10 feet tall, they just go: “Okay”. And if you act a little bit that way they see it even more. We can paint the picture as fast as we want. What sustains it is the reality of these ridiculous situations: audiences come back for the true moments, instead of the comedy of it.

What was your favourite ever improv moment?
In 2006 I got to do a World Cup of TheatreSports in the Canadian team, with two very good friends of mine: Steve Sim and Derek Flores. That was a super highlight for me. But I’ve worked with so many great people. I go to Edmonton and we have fantastic shows. Sometimes just me and Mark (Meer), sometimes with others. And Jim (Libby) and I tootle around doing a lot of two-man shows. We created a board game show where you roll the dice and it tells you how long the scene is. We both play all the characters. It’s a mix of short- and long-form.

You were in the 50 hour Improvathon, and you’ve done ultra-long Soapathons. What’s the best thing about them?
The stories can take so long and get so complex, and when you try to back-track through one you realise it started two days ago! In the Improvathon, Ruth (Bratt) and Mark (Meer) had a funny little boob-poke right near the beginning. It was so early, but it paid off throughout, and at the very end created the most romantic, touching scene. There would be no way to predict that, or make that happen. You couldn't write that story, it would be ridiculous.

Did you have any out-of-body experiences?
I had some brain farts, yeah. Nothing that was transcendent, just embarrassing. Part way through a scene you think: “Am I still here? Am I still talking? Fuck!” There’s always a time in the Soapathon where everyone is flumping on stage. But everyone comes back.

Have you ever had a totally shit show?
Oh yes. In Wetaskiwin, Alberta, a small town. We did a fundraiser gig for The Wives of the Mounties. Full of small-town ladies with power issues (because they’re married to Mounties), all hammered. We got there and the place was already a riot. We couldn't wait to get off the stage. It felt like forever. They hated us. They threw pennies at us. They even came on stage and said: “SHUT UP AND GET OFF!” I got mad. I’ve promised myself never to get mad on stage again. We did maybe 10-15 minutes… We were supposed to do 40.

Do you perform in German when you do shows in Austria?
I perform in German sometimes, very bad German. My characters are usually foreigners or animals. Or objects.

Did you have to adapt your humour in any way?
Performing in another language allows you to simplify. You can’t be clever. You can’t make jokes. If I lose track of what’s going on in a show that’s mostly in German, it’s usually because people have started making jokes or doing wordplay. If you keep it to what’s real, and what’s here, it’s no problem. It can be really helpful for people to travel and perform in another country where you can’t just make references to your own pop culture.

How would you describe your own style?
I don’t mind giving life to objects or to dogs. Again, don’t play the dog like a crazy dog - just be a dog. The reality of that is interesting, too. I don’t mind looking stupid, because it’s not me, it’s the character. If I went out there and tried to be funny and charming I’d be dead. You don’t have to defend your ideas or sneak them in emotionally, you just have to bring them to the stage and connect them to the other people. People respect that. Sometimes people take the serious stuff too seriously, that’s bad theatre. It just needs to be alive.

What was your favourite improv show you ever saw?
The first time I saw Crumbs in Winnipeg they just blew my mind. Their style was so different from anything I’d seen before and I immediately wanted to steal from them. I was watching their show looking for a structure, and afterwards they told me they didn’t have one. They just start: no games and no hooks! They just kinda play. It was a revelation.

Do you have an improv hero?
Mark Meer. Everyone is just trying to catch up to him. Actually when I’m playing with him I’m not trying to catch up to him, I’m trying to knock him off his balance. I learned years ago not to try to play the same game he’s playing, because you won’t be able to. If you’re in his game, great, but if you’re not - don’t even try. My job now is like: “Okay, Mark seems to know what he’s doing, I’m going to try and make him trip.” But he totally glosses over, like that’s part of his world too! There’s nobody else like him. And he does it with pure joy.

Do you think improv works on TV?
It’s on in America occasionally, but I don’t think it’s exactly been done properly. ‘Whose Line’ is fantastic, for what it is. There was this show called ‘The Green Screen Show’ [where actors do a short-form show in front of a green screen, then environment and props are animated in before it’s broadcast]. I liked that it was about suggesting something that could then be put in afterwards. You can’t do that on stage. I think that’s the way to go, just without all the ‘funny-funny’.

Jacob is currently working on an improvised movie. At the moment he's not sure exactly how it will work.

If you would like to read the whole unabridged interview, you can: HERE