Improv

Not a video because stage improv is only really funny when you’re in the audience. (Even then, it’s often crap† ‡)

Comedy improv, not to be confused with stand-up comedy, is making up sketches, and scenes, on the spot with no script. If you’ve ever seen the TV show ‘Who’s Line is it Anyway’ or the film ‘This Is Spinal Tap’ you know what it is.

London’s underground improv scene is similar whilst mostly white, nerdy, middle-class males  prancing about on stage, including Louie Christie.

Survival with Me, Gregory
My brother Alec Christie bought a crap electric car for £1000. I was performing at a crap open mic comedy gig and in the interval he showed me the car. This video got a whole lot more views than my gig and was a whole lot more funny.

As a lone adventurer at heart, typically I would never join the sort of team that would have me as a member 👃 but I do occasionally perform on stage with my friends in:

I’ve studied improv in:

  • London UK
  • Vancouver Canada
  • Istanbul Turkey
  • Skyros Island in Greece on a hippy retreat near where they filmed ‘Mamma Mia!’

Like a nerdy comedy train-spotter, I have slowly worked my way through most of the improv schools in London, including:

  • The Comedy School
  • The Free Association
  • Story Kitchen
  • Shoot From The Hip
  • Monkey Toast
  • Abandoman
  • Hoopla
  • Spontaneity Shop
  • Imprology
  • Crunchy Frog Collective
  • Hooray Henry1

[1] One of these is made up.

Yes, you can actually learn improv. It takes a lot of training to be funny, not shit, and completely lost and unprepared on stage.

I once had a PhD proposal rejected to do with performing improv live with improvised 3D computer graphic locations… one day.

Thanks to my brother, somehow I got sucked into dressing as a monkey and running down the corridors of Sachi and Sachi on a Sunday unbeknownst to the security guards.