Hello! Please, take a seat…on me! 

I’m a chair…the most versatile resource in an improv show. You don’t have props, so I’m your car, a park bench, a waiting room, a rollercoaster, a restaurant, a classroom, a job interview, a toilet (if you must). 

If a once-in-a-century pandemic wasn’t enough to dampen audience enthusiasm for crowding into dark dank rooms above pubs, spiralling inflation and the energy crisis might be. Most major cities where improv lives are facing a cost-of-living crisis that is only showing signs of speeding up this winter.

As improvisers, we’re up against it. Good luck shifting tickets for your make-em-ups when a bunch of households are going to be choosing whether to eat or put the heating on.

How your team warms-up has a huge impact on how you perform a show. The time you spend together pre-show is an opportunity to connect and get on the same page, to shake off whatever else has been going on that day, and get in a mindset to put on a show for a paying audience.

Purposeful warm-ups make for purposeful shows. Here’s some things to try to embed some good warm-up practice for your team

In a tag, a performer outside a specific scene taps one inside it on the shoulder, taking their place for a new scene with the remaining character. Usually, this will take that remaining character to a new setting where they can play the game in an unexpected way. An expected way will do fine too.

So, what makes a good tag move?

Entering the scene is one of the most powerful moments available to us in an improv scene. At the start, it’s all the information we have about what’s going on and who these characters are. Mid-scene, it’s a useful injection of energy, a chance to add to the game of the scene, a nice curveball to keep your teammates on their toes, or all of the above.

You stand at the door to this, the perfect improv pub.

A charming mix of Georgian grandeur and flat-roof post-war estate pub, the architect clearly intended-... WOW, there’s a lot of people in the beer garden having a great time! None of them have tickets to your show. Don’t worry about it, you’ve got eight pre-sales and Alex said he’d come down after coaching The Incurable Donkey Butt.

Two huge timeholes are scouring Rightmove for houses I’ll never be able to afford and lengthy discussions with improv teams on what format they want to perform. In both cases I’m engaging academically in where I want to be, but neither is getting me any closer to being there.