Glitch & ProjectTwo at The Old Red Lion

Using suggestions from the audience and active imaginations a team of seven improvisers/puppeteers weave an adventurous tale with a furry little cast puppets. Using a traditional Japanese “Bunraku” puppetry mix with a more modern Muppet-style, Glitch is a visual treat with fun characters all tied together with an entirely made up story.

Don’t be fooled but the cute puppets, this is not a show for kids!

In double-bill-land, Glitch will be joined by improvised Science-Fiction from ProjectTwo.

The ProjectTwo facility floats in orbit around Solaris, collecting every detail of every sentient life through voluntary data submitted to social network websites. With such data, the ProjectTwo engineers can access any real-life story since the facility's inception in 2017.

Welcome space-traveler. Which archive do you wish to view?

Improvised science-fiction which may or may not contain robots*, featuring:
Katy Schutte (★★★★ - Chortle, The Maydays, Fluxx, Baby Wants Candy)
Jonathan Monkhouse (Music Box: The Improvised Musical, London Improv)

WHEN: 7.30pm, Saturday 22nd December

COST: £8, tickets here.

WHERE: Old Red Lion Theatre, 418 St John Street, London, EC1V 4NJ. 
NEAREST TUBE: Angel

LONDONIMPROV: A REVOLUTION IN COMEDY & THEATRE

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1st Annual Chris Werren Memorial Gig

A few months ago, brilliant improviser and our friend Chris "Chrus" Werren passed away, following a fist-fight with pink-cancer-robots. Chrus was a truly lovely man who delighted us with oddness, fascination with the natural world, and generosity of spirit. To celebrate the loveable chap will be a night of improv - his second love - featuring lots of groups and improvisers that he performed with over the years.

Acts include Hoopla's Old School Cast, a reunion of Cannonball Impro, and Grand Theft Impro with additional surprises, a raffle and CAKE!

Yes, cake.

Tickets are £5 and all the proceeds will go to St. Christopher's, the hospice that did such an amazing job of caring for him in his final months and days.

You can guarantee tickets in advance by clicking on this handy link - or you can buy a ticket at the door on the night.

WHEN: 7.30pm, Wednesday 12th December

COST: £5, tickets here or on the night

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

LONDONIMPROV: A REVOLUTION IN COMEDY & THEATRE

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Austentatious at Leicester Square Theatre

A Christmas tale of fun and good cheer - how delightful!  Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.

~The Milk Monitors presents~ Austentatious: An Improvised Novel Dear reader, we are back for a very special Christmas tale, do join us for a wintery improvised romp!   ~ Please do join us on ~ 9th December at 7:30pm Last month was a veritable Autumnal feast of conkers, embarrassing parents and the privacy limitations of a good nook. But as the nights draw in, and the goose grows a little more round, we invite you to join us for a ChristmasAusten tale!  Do join us for warm Winter fun with mince pies, Christmas carols and plenty of good cheer. We do encourage you to book in advance, like Lydia Bennett, we are rather popular with the Regiment and our dance card can get very busy indeed. Always room for a Captain of course! And you can also find us twice a month at The Wheatsheaf. Book tickets  »

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FutureShock at The Camden People's Theatre

SATURDAY 8TH DECEMBER

FUTURESHOCK CABARET NIGHT & AFTER SHOW PARTY 

with PROJECT TWO

A centrepiece event of the CPT Futureshock festival, this one-off night of works-in-progress, cabaret acts and installations will be a carnival of the futuristic!

The evening's mouth-watering roster of acts includes: Foster's Comedy God and creator of Sprint 2012 smash Incontinental, Kazuko Hohki; the terrific Dumbshow Theatre; The Conker Group, whose show Underhero was a CPT hit at the Camden Fringe; sci-fi improvisers Project Two; and many more.

The evening will culminate in a party at the end of the world, with music, entertainment and drinks of a futuristic flavour.

The Futureshock festival is generously supported by the Royal Victoria Hall Foundation.

WHEN: 7:30pm, Saturday 8th December

COST: £12/£10
WHERE: Camden People's Theatre

LONDONIMPROV: A REVOLUTION IN COMEDY & THEATRE

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The Subculture of Improv

Great video about improvisers and the way they think:

A Regency Residency at Leicester Square Theatre - how delightful!

The Milk Monitors present Austentatious: An Improvised Novel After their sell-out Edinburgh Fringe debut,Austentatious: An Improvised Novel are proud to announce a new monthly residency at the Leicester Square Theatre. The residency follows their hugely popular one-off show on the main stage in September. ~ Join us for our first show on ~ 9th October at 7pm Austentatious is an improvised Jane Austen novel, based entirely on audience suggestions and entirely new every time. Chock-full of wit, flirtation, and dastardly behaviour, Austentatious was one of the top ten best-reviewed shows of the Edinburgh Fringe; now is your chance to catch it in our Great Capital. We can also be found at the Leicester Square Theatre on November the 10th & December the 9th, and twice a month at The Wheatsheaf, Rathbone Place. All the details are available on our website. Book tickets  »

#ChicaGoUK: The Funkhouse

Yes, there really are more of us going to Chicago this summer. Here's another one. Jonathan Monkhouse is the creator of London Improv and has been producing improv shows since it began. Over the years he's been part of 8bit, Music Box and a few improvathons. He goes to Chicago tomorrow morning. He is currently talking about himself in the third person.

Tell us a bit about yourself..

I studied to be an actor at university, but didn't enjoy learning scripts or being on stage and ended up mostly doing set-design and lighting. I saw Baby Wants Candy way back in 2001, but just thought they were superhuman, and didn't realise that anyone can train in improv.
I didn't set foot on stage after uni, until I got dragged to an improv workshop about 7 years later where, predictably, my obsessive personality caught the bug and have been improvising since. I also do a lot of impro-lighting, the most fun of which is for Showstoppers because they work in theatres with proper lighting rigs.

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

My favourite one ever was a call for a location, which was "in a time-travelling caravan." Sadly that was a rehearsal though, so I don't know if it counts [even though I am the one conducting this interview, so I make the rules... oooh, Meta]. The best one for a show was probably Orient Express, because it led to the most satisfying show I've ever been in.

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

I'm doing the week intensive at The Annoyance Theatre. Earlier this year a bunch of people started saying they were going to iO for five weeks, and I couldn't do that. But then The Annoyance came up in conversation and that seemed to be a perfect fit. I like the idea that The Annoyance focusses closely on a performer's instinct.. slightly different to other schools of thought. I think if you want to become better at something you should be open to all the different ways of doing it, seek out all the best practitioners, and find out what works best for you. Like Bruce Wayne does.
I'll be learning Ju-jitsu from Mick Napier and bare-knuckle brawling from Susan Messing.

When/how did you start planning your trip?

About a week after the Annoyance conversation I booked the course. Then I set about trying to get my friend Chris [Mead] to come too. Once that was sorted, we looked for a place to stay. Originally we tried to keep it as cheap as possible, but then I found an amazing apartment to rent and our Chicago motto became "Go big, or go home." Our apartment is absolutely beautiful, but so expensive it makes me feel nauseous.

What are you most excited about?

I think living in an improv bubble for 10 days will be energising and helpful. Being in workshops and seeing shows for that whole time will be really useful for developing as an improviser.
There is talk of someone in Chicago producing a UK improviser show for us, so if that happens it'll be really fun. And seeing a new city is always cool.

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

There's more I want to see than I'll probably have time for. I really want to see TJ and Dave, Messing With A Friend, Felt [improvised puppet show] and Co-ed Prison Sluts. Seeing Baby Wants Candy in their natural habitat would be great. I've also heard that Improvised Shakespeare are pretty phenomenal.
Stupidly I've also set myself the challenge of finding the 'worst improv show' in Chicago, although this will be pretty hard to do tactfully. And it may not be that rewarding, apart from a good dose of schadenfreude.

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

Eat... and I've heard there is an excellent architecture tour, on a boat. Not something I'd think too much about, but a bunch of different people have told me about it individually. The new Batman film comes out while I'm there so I want to do the American movie theatre thing with a half tonne of Coca-cola and a 3 metre hotdog.

How do you think the trip will change you?

Pretty badly, financially. Afterwards, I'm flying straight from Chicago to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for a month. In total I won't see my house for just under 6 weeks. Or be earning much money. I'm trying not to think about it too much.
As for my improv, I'm just looking forward to getting back into it. I've been doing so much of the production/lighting side of shows that my stage work has really suffered. All this will change.

Do you think you'll go back another time?

There's an idea that Chris and I return next year to do the iO five-week intensive. But there's loads of other really exciting cities with interesting improv scenes to explore. I've been asked to play in the Hideout Theatre 44-hr Improv Marathon next June in Austin, TX, and I don't want to miss that. And I've had invites to Edmonton in Canada too.
I should start entering the lottery.

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

I've wanted to call an improv group "The Margate Archery Club" for years, but all my show format ideas are science-fiction based, and no-one else seems to like it. I heard someone suggest "The Racists" once, which I enjoyed but I can't see it taking off.
How about "The Smell of Regret"?


Jonathan appears in Project Two, Silly String Theory and Ghostbusters: The Musical.
His Twitter name is @the_funkhouse
Follow all the improvisers at #ChicaGoUk

#ChicaGoUK: Jenny Rowe

He goes, she goes, we go, they go, I go, you go, go go, Frodo, mojo, dojo, Aygo. Jen is going to Chicago. She's in The Maydays. Her pictures are funny.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

I’m Jen from the Maydays, in Brighton, but when I’m not Mayday-ing, I do other actor-ing. At the moment I’m playing a pregnant lady in ‘Future Development’ by impro theatre company Fluxx, then I start re-rehearsing for Twelfth Night and through all of this I’m doing street theatre with Dodgy Totty. In fact, two weeks ago I was an elderly dry-land synchronized swimmer being chased by a land-shark and this weekend I was puppeteering a mouse puppet acrobat in a World War II show at a sheep fair.

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

Let’s put it this way, the reply from my colleague was "Sorry, we’ve already had ‘fisting’". This was directed at the teenage children (audience) of a mother who was in our student showcase.

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

I’m doing two because I’m greedy like that. Annoyance for one week (John Cremer and George from the Maydays did it before and said it was great, I’ve had Mick Napier’s book for ages and I haven’t read it properly so I thought the best way to find out what was in it was to ask him personally).
I’m also doing Second City’s Writing course and Improv workshop (I jammily got a scholarship for some of it). I talked Mark Brailsford of The Treason Show into running a sketch-writing course a couple of years ago for me and some of my students, but as I’ve barely written a thing since then, I realized I need another kick up the arse to get on with it, so this is it.

When/how did you start planning your trip?

About January I think – I had wanted to go for ages but didn’t think I could afford it. Then I realised you couldn’t let a little thing like money get in the way of something this big. People always say things like, ‘I could never afford kids’, but then they have kids and, yes, they drain your money away but you still end up with kids. Chicago’s like that, it will drain my money away but I’ll still have Chicago (only Chicago won’t hate me in 15yrs time or wish it had never been born).

What are you most excited about?

Everything, too much, I don’t know where to start - everything. Learning new stuff, doing wall to wall improv, seeing loads of shows – the shit and the good, seeing a new city, hanging out with improv chums.

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

Well, I’m going through NYC on the way there and back, so I desperately wanted to see Asssscat, but it seems I’m on the wrong bloody days! So in Chicago I want to see Whirled News, TJ and Dave, Too Much Water Makes the Baby Go Blind (not improv but highly recommended by friends), Timprovisation, Improvised Shakespeare, The Armando Diaz Experience. I also wanted to see The Reckoning but they’ve only gone and moved to LA.

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

I’m researching a female sci-fi writer who called herself James Tiptree Jr. (Alice B. Sheldon). I found out recently that she was born in Chicago so I may find myself in the City Library or visiting her previous homes or something. I only have 2 weeks so I’ll have to prioritise. The plan is I write a play about her – her parents were explorers, she became a CIA agent, fantastic painter, writer, married twice then shot herself and her husband in the head when he got past it.

Oh yeah, and the Thrift shops and second-hand bookstores.

And I have to buy ‘Butterfingers’, apparently.

How do you think the trip will change you?

I don’t think I’ll be a better improviser in a couple of weeks, but I think I’ll be a better teacher and I’ll have more sense of what I’m aiming for when I’m improvising. I think it’ll put some of the work we’ve done with visiting USA actors into context. I’ll also be poorer and fatter by the end, I should imagine.

Do you think you'll go back another time?

I certainly hope so. I’d also like to spend more time in NYC and maybe LA, but only for the improv, mind. I’ve put off going to the US because I’m terrified of flying (the nice calm bit where nothing happens is the worst – that’s when I imagine the horrors that may await me).

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

The Now People

Jen performs in The Maydays and Fluxx.
Follow all the UK improvisers going to Chicago at #ChicaGoUK.