Week 7 Training with British Improvisation Theatre

Hi, I’ve been running Improv as a part of NTW TEAM from Nov 6th, and have been attending a different Improvisation course in Bristol run by the lovely Tristan Hancock in order to get a bit of a refresh. 

Thursday 22nd November – Week 7

After being thoroughly soaked in the rain, I was surprised by how well this session went. One or two people did drop out because of the filthy weather (we said they were probably winding their VHS tapes), but otherwise the group was ready to go.

We began by playing a variation on ‘Finding the game’. We stood in a line onstage and had to collectively find the same reason for all of us to leave the stage, without speaking. In the first instance someone mimed their watch, and we all decided we were late and it was time to leave. This was, however, lead by that one person, so we played it again, and a few more times after that for good measure. What we learnt was that there is always something to pick and amplify from someone, be it a yawn, an itch, a heavy breath, a look, and if we all pay attention to each other, we soon start acting collectively, quickly finding a reason to leave.

            Next we moved to the main them of the session – Tilting. These are things that are used to suddenly change the scene, to alter one of the people. We were given a sheet of paper with lots of possible tilts on, such as for the section Park Bench: ‘I’m a ghost’ ‘I’ve been stalking you’ ‘I’m your long lost brother’. Whilst the best tilts come organically from the scene, you can use a whole bag of standard tilts to mix up a scene, and give it its sense of purpose. After reading the list we watched two people begin a park bench scene, just talking normally, and were asked to watch until we had absolutely had had enough of it and wanted a tilt to happen, then we had to look to everyone else and shout ‘Tilt’ at the same time. Lo and behold it wasn’t until 8 minutes in that we got bored, which goes to show how sustainable a scene can be with very little forced “drama”.

            After this we split into pairs and played a scene for ourselves, Tilting when we felt it was necessary, and then got back together a talked about it.

            For a bit of a break, we then did some trust exercises. We made a wall at one edge of the room, and then one by one went to the other end, were blindfolded and had to walk to the other end, trusting the others to catch us before we hit the wall. A very weird sensation indeed, and everyone seem to hit this little ‘wall’ before the actual wall, our anxieties slowing us down. Once we had all walked from one end to the other, we did a light jog just to ramp things up a bit.

            With plenty of adrenaline pumping we did one final scene in partners, using one of the tilts from the sheet, but giving ourselves plenty of time to create the scene. I worked with Big Tom (there are two Tom’s in our group) and we were brothers camping together, who eventually find a trapped mouse who offers us three wishes to set him free. It was a really lovely scene and I could really begin to feel myself letting go of control and just playing and enjoying the scene itself.

            Only three more weeks to go of my rantings – lucky you.

Peace.

Charlie.

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