And if you’re up in Edinburgh doing a show, then this one’s for you baby! x

Dear Person at the Edinburgh Fringe,

How are you?

I hope your show is going well and that you’ve had good food, decent sales and happy crowds. What’s the weather like?

All’s apocalyptic fine in London! We’re emerging from the eighty fifth (?) heatwave of the Summer so far. There was a mini typhoon in my local park the other day, foxes are having raves on the tops of cars, and I got PTSD from the government alert that went off about wild fires, but other than that all’s good! 😃

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There has been neither work, nor work related communications this month. Ok, that’s not quite true, I have had some work which I’m grateful for. I’ve done some improv teaching, led a theatre workshop, recorded a couple of podcasts and had a transformative day helping out a theatre company with their show. But other than that “IT’S CRICKETS!!!!” as my actress friend said. The friend in question is very successful, so at least I’m not the only one encountering tumbleweed both metaphorical and literal.

It’s not all bad though. Usually I spend the entirety of August at the Edinburgh Fringe but this Summer I wanted to spend time with family and friends like a normal human being, and I’m pleased to say I’ve managed to do that. I had a dreamy weekend away with old friends, a wedding (not mine), a trip to the seaside to visit family, and I was able to celebrate my friend’s birthday which I’m usually away for. Also my dog Gary experienced the beach for the first time which was very exciting. He hates water, which has been inconvenient to say the least during these heatwaves, so I wasn’t sure how he’d feel about the sea, but he was up for it! Admittedly he thought it was a giant salty water bowl and tried to lap it up, but at least his paws got wet.

Let me know what the weather is like in Edinburgh? Have you worn a coat yet?

As well as enabling me to see loved ones, missing the first few weeks of the Edinburgh Fringe has given me a rare sense of perspective about the festival as a whole. When you’re doing a solo show up there it feels like the most important thing in the world doesn’t it? Outside of the Edinburgh Fringe though the world is still on fire turning. I hope you’re ok. I hope you are remembering to eat now and again.

I thought I’d share with you some of the things I find helpful when I’m up there with a solo show. I shouldn’t really give advice should I? After all, advice is just a way of being nostalgic isn’t it? I’m sure someone said that better than me once 😉 but you get the gist.

Advice for people currently doing shows at the Edinburgh Fringe.

• Make emergency sandwiches.
  My friend Matt is a talented actor who, despite very much not being in his 40’s, embraces the middle aged vibes of making packed sandwiches every day and carting them around Edinburgh just in case. This approach kept me migraine free last August. At the fringe the gaps between shows are small, and the queues for food trucks are long, so it’s best to be prepared.

• Skive off (from seeing shows).
  It’s the biggest arts festival in the world and there are shows every hour of the day in every room in Edinburgh. How amazing, but also how exhausting! It’s great seeing lots of stuff but if you’re knackered, take a day off. Don’t feel guilty. Stay in bed, sleep, or scroll videos of dogs instead. It feels decadent but you’ve earned it my love.

• Don’t read reviews.
  Not yours and not anyone else’s either. Get a friend to read your own reviews for you and select pull-quotes. Remember, even when the show has ended you don’t have to read your own reviews (no matter how good they are) if you don’t want to. Some reviewers are excellent writers and true champions of comedy. Shout out to those people, they know who they are. ❤️ It can be helpful to read a well written review by journalists of that calibre, for a boost, to hear insights you hadn’t considered or genuine thoughts about how to improve your show at a later date. But if you’re someone that gets in their head, and only remembers the negative feedback (no matter how minor) then it might be worth forgoing reading them all together. In a couple of occasions over the years I’ve had reviews in which the journalists criticised the room itself, eg the faint hum from the fridge behind the bar in the free fringe venue I was in. There was nothing I could do about this so it was utterly pointless to read it! Remember, some reviewers are great but others are less so. If you need reminding of that then please watch this insane documentary.

• Treat yourself.
  Brunch! Lunch! A massage! Whatever floats your boat! You’ve already spent 2 hundred billion pounds to be there so who cares at this point right?!

• See a show outside of the genre you’re doing.
  If you’re a comedian see a bleak immersive theatre piece about nuclear fall-out. If you’re a clown or an improviser see a tightly choreographed dance piece. If you’re a puppeteer see some stand up. If you’re a puppet go to the zoo.

• Celebrate yourself. (If you’re like me then this will be hard, but give it a go)
  A lot of people think about making things, and many talk about making things, but you have actually made a thing. That’s hard! You’ve put something out into the world, and by performing it every day you’re learning and getting better. Perhaps you’re learning about comedy, being in the moment, audiences, the structure of the show, or you might be learning that this way of life is not sustainable and that your dream is now to run away and join an accountancy firm. Whatever it is, you’re in the stretch zone (!) and that’s a good place to be.

• Results may not be revealed until later.

  A lucky few will get immediate rewards from the fringe, by winning an award, getting high profile reviews, or gaining a following. For many though what is gained won’t be revealed until later. It might come in the form of someone who wants to work with you years from now because they saw your show, or you might have made something that moved or inspired someone. Once I took a show to Edinburgh that hardly anyone saw. On one particularly depressing day I performed it to three people. It was a painful experience for me, but seemingly not for them, as one of the trio of audience members was a producer who got in touch with me about a project a few months later. I had no idea that he was one of the audience members, let alone that he had enjoyed it! Another member of the trio was a reviewer who remembered the show and spoke to me about it very warmly ten years later! I couldn’t believe it, as for me that had been a very dark day. It just goes to show that you never know who is watching or how they may have felt about it. Recently at the Leicester Comedy Festival an audience member came to my show and wanted to say hello afterwards because they’d interacted with one of my characters in 2018 and the moment had stayed with them. Your show could connect with someone professionally, artistically or just on a human level and you may not discover that until years later. So keep going! (But also you are allowed to give up and never do this again if you want.)

• Wear sunscreen.
  (This year you might actually need to).

I’ll be joining you in Edinburgh for the final week of the festival. I had a great time with my solo show last year, but i must admit it feels luxurious to only be going up for a week this time. I’m going up primarily to do Showstopper! The Improvised Musical. As you know The Pleasance Grand (where we perform) is big and wide, so there’s plenty of room to run around the stage and improvise choreography. I know I’m lucky to perform on that stage, it’s one of my favourite venues and I never take it for granted. It can be a challenge joining the show near the end of the festival though. In its one act form, Showstopper moves so quickly that joining the cast once they’re in a groove is like trying to jump on board a fast moving train. Hopefully I’ve been in the company for long enough that I’ll be able to jump on board the train with gay abandon and won’t be embarrassed if I fall on to the tracks. We shall see. The energy I want to come up with this year is the cavalry are coming. People will be tired. One or two people in the Showstopper cast do the whole month which can be mentally and physically draining, so my aim is to come up with some fun vibes. I’ll let you know if I succeed…

I’ll also be a guest in one performance (in the same venue) of Paul Merton and Suki Webster’s Improv Show and again I feel grateful to join in with the fun of that. It’s a nice bunch and really interesting performing with such established people.

In contrast (venue-wise) I’m doing a one-off performance of my improvised folk musical These Folk. It will be very intimate! Full disclosure, me and Justin Brett (who I do the show with) haven’t been very organised when it comes to publicity, so it may be quite a boutique experience! Whether the audience is big or small though we love doing it and it will feel special to be performing the show in Scotland for the first time. Improvising with Justin is like getting into a warm bath but not in a creepy way, so I guess it’s like getting into a warm bath with our clothes on and there’s no water in it and we’re just chatting but the room itself is warm. Like at a house party where every room is full so you end up chatting in the bath. Remember parties like that? No me neither. What I’m saying is there’s no stress performing together. Also it’s a show where I can sing like myself. I don’t have to change my vocal style to try and make myself more “musical theatre”, so do come along if you want to listen to how I actually sound.

I’m excited to join you up there and see as much stuff as possible. For once, I’ve made a comprehensive list of shows to see and, without the time pressure of doing a solo show, I should be able to see most of them. How exciting!

Also I meant to ask, what’s the weather like in Edinburgh right now? Have you had bare legs at any point?

Next year I’ll be back with a brand new solo show. I’ve already started writing it and I can’t wait to get going. Stay tuned for work in progress shows along the way. It’ll be quite different to my last hour and I can’t wait to see what you think.

Love & hugs

Susan x x x

ps - what’s the weather like up there?

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NEWS

These Folk: an improvised folk musical, PBH Free Fringe, Banshee Labyrinth cinema room, 26th August 12:20pm

Showstopper! The Improvised Musical Pleasance Grand, 23rd-30th August 5:20pm

The Showstopper Kid’s show Pleasance Grand 23rd, 29th, 30th 10:30am

Paul Merton & Suki Webster’s Improv Show, Pleasance Grand, 23rd August 3:30pm

Once in a blue moon I hold out hope that I’ll get an acting job I’ve auditioned for. The standard advice for actors used to be “As soon as you leave the audition put the pages of the script in the bin and forget about it.” Nowadays auditions are mostly recorded at home on a phone, so the equivalent advice would be to drag the video you’ve made into the bin on your laptop. (Once 500 hours have passed and it’s finally uploaded to Dropbox of course.)

All this to say that I’m good at forgetting about auditions once I’ve sent off the self-tape, but occasionally, as happened at the start of this year, the promise of a job gets under my skin. This can happen when the job is really “tasty,” as my friend would say. A tasty job (in her eyes and mine) might be one which is challenging or joyful in some way. Perhaps it’s an exciting or rewarding role/story, or the director/cast are people you really want to work with, or it’s well paid and/or could lead to more creative opportunities. When a job is tasty it’s hard to forget about it, particularly when it takes a long time to hear back with a yes or a no, and it ends up being filed in your brain as a maybe. Living in the liminal space of “maybe” is dangerous because it is in the maybe that hope creeps in. When I’m waiting to hear about a tasty opportunity I find it hard not to imagine the life I’d have if I got the job. I start gazing into a future in which this one magical role leads to other opportunities and enables me to live with slightly less hustle. In this mystical future I envisage myself surrounded by a team of people managing my career so that all I have to do is perform and write.

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Needless to say I did not get the acting job in question and felt stupid for falling for it. Pissed off for using valuable headspace for hope, when I could have been using that section of my brain for pushing forward with the maaaannnny self generated projects I have.

Amy Poehler once described the entertainment industry as a “bad boyfriend” and recommended that everyone treats it accordingly. Usually I do, I treat The Industry with the offhand approach that a hot and cold lover deserves. This has served me well, but while waiting to hear back about this particular role I fell for The Industry’s charms. A bit of my brain was waiting for the shit boyfriend to text, making up complicated scenarios as to why he hadn’t replied, when in reality it was because he was never that into me and he (the production team) simply forgot to let me know.

Way back in 2018 there was a campaign for casting directors to give actors a yes or no as to whether they’d got the job or not. Can you imagine that? What other industry would have a national campaign begging potential employers to send a brief message to let tell people if they did/didn’t get a job they’d applied for? Ridiculous! But I guess in this world of AI it is soooo arduous and time consuming for someone to send an automated email, oh wait hang on it takes no time at all and would be incredibly easy.

👆🏻 Losing it during a self tape for an advert or something. Treating The Industry as Amy Poehler advised.

I have always made my own work alongside auditioning for traditional roles. I love making my own stuff (it’s not just a means to an end) and have always been driven to do so. I am very realistic. I know that no one is going to pluck me out of obscurity and give me the role of, ummm I dunno, let’s say, a geeky teacher on a Netflix comedy sci-fi show which I’d then be able to use as a springboard for my work and get producers interested in the sitcoms I’m writing, and then be able to go on a beloved game-based TV comedy show so that people would come to my gigs and I wouldn’t have to lie in bed worrying about selling tickets but WOULDN’T IT BE NICE IF THIS DID HAPPEN AND IT’S VERY HARD NOT TO IMAGINE IT.

The solution as always is to be galvanised by rejection, to put that energy into one’s own projects and that’s what I’m trying to do. I once wrote a whole book after being pissed off about something I’d experienced as a performer. The book was funny (I think) but it was speculative fiction and things moved so fast in the real world that the imagined future I wrote about swiftly became out of date. Still, it was a good experiment which I hope has paved the way for another book at some point. Anyway, what I’m saying is there’s no point in prioritising someone (The Industry) who doesn’t give a damn about you. I’m saying this to myself, but if this rings true for you then I hope it’s a helpful reminder. It’s important to prioritise your own work, to keep making, searching, exploring and experimenting. Think like an artist. Be an artist. Even if 80% of the time you’re being your own sales department, marketing assistant, location scout, props manager, costume designer, head of wigs, content manager and accountant. Hold tight to the precious 20% of the rest of the time.

The problem with rejection though is that when you get rejected by a big job, rejections from small jobs sting more than they ordinarily would. I got a mini rejection (from an unpaid 10 minute comedy gig which you have to apply for*) on the same day as the big rejection. Getting a double whammy rejection compounds any worries you may have about yourself as a performer eg: you’re too old, not in with the right crowd, not new talent, didn’t go to one of the well connected schools, weren’t a member of footlights, don’t have an easily graspable identity, don’t make enough videos entitled “elder millennials be like,” not a name, not cool, not from a famous family, too old….too old etc…or even, too old.

*yes really.

After writing this Substack I got another rejection. This time it came mercifully quickly (from a lovely team) which I was grateful for. As I sat in the kitchen reading the rejection email I thought, although experiencing rejection gets easier, it never gets easy. When I was in my 20’s my friend and I worked in a call-centre full of actors. There was an older and wiser actress there who did a lot of TV work who would eat a box of maltesers every time she got a rejection. As a fan of maltesers that stayed with me….After my most recent rejection I said “I’m going to have an hour of feeling sad and then do some work.” so my partner made us these incredible cheese and pea toasted sandwiches and bought me chocolate and we watched terrible reality TV until it didn’t matter anymore.

On the day of hearing the long awaited ‘no’ for the tasty job at the start of this year, I did some gardening. This is a first for me, having moved somewhere where such things are possible, and the hours flew by. I loved it: getting rid of the deadwood, pulling out the weeds, making space for new things to grow. That’s what I’m attempting to do now. I’m tending to existing projects, working on some dreams and planting some new ideas in the hope that they will emerge. When next spring rolls around we’ll see what comes up.

News
These Folk: an improvised folk musical.
Thursday 9th July, 7.45pm at Hoopla, London Bridge.
An improvised folk musical made up on the spot with a guitarist and percussionist. A rare chance to see us in action!
If you live in London it would mean the world if you came along, and if you don’t live in London could you do me a favour and tell one person about it who you think would enjoy it? Thank you 💚

isobelly Laughs Stand Up Comedy
Thursday 16th July 6.30pm at 144 New Cavendish Street, London.
I’ll be doing some alternative/character comedy at this night, alongside some really great stand ups including Sam Nicoresti who was the winner of the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Show last year, BAFTA-nominated comedian Rajiv Karia, and the great Will Mars. I shall be bringing the weird : )

* Here’s a video of the guy who invented the word umpteenth. Enjoy!

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Anyway, I saw some shows, briefly hung with nice people, ate some incredible chicken paella and the next day I did my show. It was at 12 midday in The Swallow Theatre. The conditions were great (a small room, sold out crowd, nice volunteers ), but it didn’t quite fly in the way I wanted it to, and I found it hard not to beat myself up about that afterwards. I hate the idea of an audience not having an amazing time, or feeling short changed in some way. I find doing work in progress stuff a bit soul destroying. It would be helpful to be deluded or thick skinned but unfortunately I’m neither so the critical voice in my head is extremely observant and very loud. It simply feels wrong trying things out in a show that don’t quite work. I realise that sounds odd because in a sense I encourage people to fail when I’m teaching improv, but in another sense you can’t really fail in improv because mistakes are a gift, and the stakes in an improv class are very low. In an hour long solo show that people have paid for however, the stakes feel slightly higher. That being said, I tried new things, and I experimented, which is what I set out to do. As my friend Paul F Taylor said you have to do that or you won’t make anything interesting, and you won’t get better. Which is true. Paul is a very good comedian and makes interesting & very funny work, so I am taking comfort from his words.

I split my work in progress show into two halves. The first half featured written characters/bits and the second half was entirely improvised. Doing solo improv of this type was interesting and harder than I expected. There were certain characters that worked, I really enjoyed being an irascible poet for instance, but for the most part each character needed to be gamified. It quickly became apparent to me that I couldn’t do improvisation without a short-form game attached. I tried to, with one character, and it didn’t take off. The audience at Mach genuinely do know best, so I swiftly pivoted! After all, a character comedy show in a comedy festival is not the place for slow-burn, slice of life improvisation.
Also, and this is going to sound really obvious, what I hadn’t taken into account is, when you improvise on your own there is no one to bounce off. Audiences love seeing an improviser swiftly adapt to what another improviser has offered them, but when it’s just you, this is simply not possible. I mean, I tried! But it’s a tall order. In retrospect I should have played more than one character in a scene so that at least they could see me having to adapt to myself. That’s what I’d do in a purely improvised show, but this was not that, this was a character show. All in all it was a useful experiment but I think that I shall go back to smuggling improvised moments into my scripted character comedy instead. In the Soho Theatre version of my most recent show “Should I Still Be Doing This?” I snuck an improvised verse into a song at the end (drawing on things an audience member told me about themselves at the start of the show), which was satisfying. Not everyone noticed it (!) but those that did enjoyed it. Side note: that kind of improv, in which rhymes are essential, requires the technical improv part of my brain, as opposed to the instinctive improv part. Lately I’ve done some shows with The Noise Next Door and I am thankful to them and their approach for igniting this technical skill in my synapses!

Like an absolute fool I failed to film my work in progress show or record the audio or even get any photos (!) so I wrote some notes on the train back afterwards instead. I’m sharing them here in case it’s useful for your process, or just interesting for your brain.

WIP: “What About This?” post-show notes.

Harriet the theatre volunteer.
This was an old character that I reused. In my last show I was Harriet at the start. I loved being her and it was a useful way to warm up the crowd beforehand. I might always start my shows with her from now on? She worked well again I think, despite one audience member briefly thinking she was Rose West!

Jessie Buckley
I think there’s potential in this character. I need more jokes but she’s heading along the right lines and I can smuggle an improvised song into her bit. I didn’t do a brilliant job of the song in the Mach show, it was respectable but not amazing (there is zero thinking time in solo improv!!) but it will work better when I know the rest of the show more and therefore have more brain space for improvised moments.

The Character of Wordle
This works in principle! Especially for an alternative comedy crowd. Need to polish up the prop/costume side of it now and add some more script to the intro. I trialed it at Don’t Be Yourself Ralph Jones’s fun character comedy night, and the audience guessed the word quite quickly, but this time I managed to set it up so that it lasted longer and was more satisfying.

True crime podcast sketch
I took this from a video I made but it didn’t really work live, it was too static. Now I know that though, which is useful.

A running joke about Dog Dylan.
This did not have a pay off. The day before I thought “this does not have a pay off” but I didn’t have time to create a really good sound effect/pre-written song or to find an improv musician to do the show in order to pay it off. In retrospect I wish I’d engineered something, anything, (even something very rough) to conclude the bit. I kind of knew in my gut that it needed a button. So the lesson here is, trust your gut.

The Improv section
The gamefied/short-form stuff works but can be a slog on your own. Largely I’m glad I tried it, but probably won’t do it again like this. However, one character I improvised in this section (a poet) has the potential to be developed and scripted and then his poems can be smuggled improv. I’m really enjoying the idea of smuggling improv! Can you tell? I’m going to say it again, “smuggling improv”. Maybe that’s the title of my next show? “Susan Harrison smuggles improv”. That’s not bad actually.

Other notes
I think I swore too much and also there was a gross written suggestion from an audience member that I should have ignored because there was a young person in the room but my judgement was off so I read it out. I feel bad about that. It wasn’t anything horrific but normally I wouldn’t have read it with a young person in. What I learnt from this was that with solo short-form improv there’s no time to think or pause which means there’s the potential to make rushed, bad decisions. It’s easier to deal with these types of things elegantly when there’s more than one of you on stage. You can share the cognitive load.

Improv geekery
For clarity (and for the improv aficionados out there) when I talk about solo improv I’m not talking about beautiful, sensitive long-form solo shows in which people take their time developing scenes and don’t worry about laughs, and perform to an improv savvy audience. I’m also not talking about David Elm’s style of solo improvised performance in which he takes his time building an environment with his audiences. I’m talking about solo character improv, for a comedy audience. Different kettles of fish! I’d very much like to do the former too one day, but that will be a whole different show.

I hope this has been interesting in some way. I think most comedians find making new work hard, so if you’re at that stage in a project I’m sending you a long distance high five. Having spent a long time creating my previous show I know that it’s worth going through this sticky process. Just gotta keep on trucking and preferably remember to film your set. After all, how else are you going to find out if you really do look like Rose West?

NEWS

Showstopper! The Improvised Musical
May 18th at The Cambridge Theatre.
There is one (1) chance to see me in Olivier Award winning Showstopper! The Improvised Musical between now and August. See you there?

Pretending: What Is Improvisation?
One Size Productions (a production company I set up with Lucy Trodd) is releasing clips from out short mockumentary film Pretending: What is Improvisation. Watch some clips here We’re thrilled that so many people (70 thousand at the last count) are watching our work and enjoying it. We also got selected for the first Female Pilot Club Festival. Whoop!

Paul Merton and Suki Webster’s Improv Show
May 20th and 27th at The Comedy Store, London.
I’m guesting on two of these shows this month, with Jason Manford and Julian Clary. Can’t wait.

I have done occasional things at the Soho Theatre before, I once did a production of Bagpuss there (I have vivid memories of running through the marketing office to get from one area of the stage to another) but this is the first time I’ve performed my own comedy work there, so I’m VERY excited. I’ve seen a lot of my favourite comedians and performers perform at Soho Theatre over the years and to be honest I never thought I’d be cool enough to be programmed there but somehow I have snuck in!

WAHOOOOOO!

Of all the work I’ve made, my solo character show Susan Harrison: Should I Still Be Doing This? is the thing I’ve enjoyed performing the most. I took it to The Leicester Comedy Festival this week to a small but sweet crowd and it felt nice to revisit the show. Stand ups may get heckled, but I get people telling me that when they were little their Mum found them a Sindy doll’s house in a skip, or that they met the love of their life on a train. Genuinely wholesome stuff.

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For the past two years I’ve wanted to make a show to say something, albeit in a lighthearted way, about continuing to make work in the face of getting older. After my first sold-out performance of Should I Still Be Doing This? at the Edinburgh Fringe, I asked some passers by to take a photo of me in front of the sold-out board. It transpired that they’d seen the show that night. They were clowns and circus performers who told me that the themes had chimed with them, especially my contortionist character who questions whether she should still be pursuing her career. This character is a joke whereby I map her career onto mine and it is deliberately heavy handed and silly, but to them (especially with their performance background) it resonated. It felt special to connect with those strangers, in that moment and in that way. That’s the thing I love about solo work, that it’s never really solo, it’s always a conversation with the audience.

When I started doing interactive stuff in my previous show Susan Harrison is a bit Weepy the experience made me feel good about humanity because audiences were invariably keen to help my characters and to get involved. I still feel like that. It’s a heartening feeling to interact with so many well inclined people, people who are happy to play when you give them the circumstances in which to do so. My current show has some optional moments of play with the audience. It isn’t an improv show but as one reviewer observed there are “flashes of improvisation” and it has the ethos of improv at its core.

It’s been a long journey to get to the finished production. I experimented for ages making different versions. At one point I played two mobile phone characters, and ultimately there ended up being none at all. Liz Truss came and went, she had to be scrapped due to overwhelming irrelevance, and a version I performed at Mach Fest even had a character of mine in it from my Susan Harrison is a bit Weepy show. So it’s been a long process with an ever changing lineup of characters.

At the Edinburgh Fringe, after my previews and initial worries were out of the way, doing the show was a lot of fun. Reviews were positive and more importantly the audience reviews from people who’d come along (sometimes on a whim) were really, really nice. Despite this, the day after I got home from the Edinburgh Fringe I was instantly filled with anxiety and regret about what I could have done better if I’d had more time to rehearse, or if I’d had any budget for set. Isn’t it crazy that some character and sketch acts have sets and full production support these days?

Here is a short sketch/homage to Monty Python about old character comedians reminiscing.

(Assuming the Four Yorkshiremen sketch voice)

“Sets! We didn’t have sets when I was a character comedian. In my day you were lucky to have a stool.”

“Stool! You were lucky! In my day we didn’t have stools, we had to sit on a pile of rain-soaked soggy copies of the fringe brochure.”

“Huh, you were lucky! In my day we didn’t have fringe brochures. We had to shout the time and venue of our show into the faces of passers by.”

“Passers by! You were lucky! In my day we didn’t have passers by, we had to sit in a cave eating wooly mammoth and thinking about what was funny.”

“Huh! Thoughts?! In my day we didn’t have thoughts, all we had was existence!”

End of sketch.

Despite my current lack of expensive set, I’m really pleased to have made a show that I like, to have connected with strangers and, throughout the month of the Edinburgh Fringe, to have made people of various generations laugh. As discussed (see Bagpuss) I have experience in children’s theatre, so when I made teenagers in the audience laugh it felt like a win. I particularly enjoyed the time a young person proudly argued with my panda character about his poo-ing capabilities.

My show Susan Harrison: Should I Still Be Doing This? is happening on April 24th and 25th so I have time to make tweaks and changes to hopefully make the show even better. Without the financial pressure of a month long run I am hoping I’ll be able to polish it up a bit too which is exciting…it is hard for me to say this but…I think it will be good?

I’m so grateful to everyone who came to see my work in progress shows in London, Bristol, Glasgow and Wales over the past couple of years. You may have witnessed occasional awkward moments, half finished thoughts, forgotten song lyrics, wonky costume changes and strange ideas even more strangely executed. If you came along to one of those WIPs I’d love you to see the finished version. It’s fun now, I promise. And if you’ve never been to a WIP of the show or if you’ve already seen the finished version, you should come along too! It would be nice to see you.
Here is my pitch: if you want an hour of good vibes, warm hearted laughs and surreal surprises, this is the show to book for. Oh, and I regularly get sent the ticket sales which is quite stressful, so do book your tickets in advance. It would honestly mean the world to me and my blood pressure.

MY SOLO SHOW
Book your tickets here! 🤩
Susan Harrison: Should I Still Be Doing This? Soho Theatre, London,
April 24th and 25th 8.45pm

OTHER NEWS
The London 50 hour Improvathon Feb 27th - March 1st
I’ll be in this joyfully experimental show for all of Sunday, possibly playing a pop star who is, in her words “pushing 40 and just shy of 5ft 2” (quite tall tbh) Can you guess who it is?

Showstopper! The Improvised Musical, Monday 23rd Feb, Cambridge Theatre.
I’ll be in the cast of Showstopper this Monday at the West End. Can’t wait.

RECOMMENDATION
If you’re reading this as an improv fan I heartily recommend you go along to see The Pretend Company in their improvised play What We Leave Behind at The Omnibus Theatre. The company is helmed by some of my favourite performers and it will doubtless be a magical night out at the theatre. 19th-21st Feb at 8pm.

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I’ve been trying to write in the 4 minutes I spend in my dressing room during Act 1, but by the time I finish drafting something it’s no longer relevant. I even wrote an Edinburgh Fringe article at one point, dissecting how it had gone (it went really well, I enjoyed it!) but the Fringe, and Summer itself, seem like a lifetime ago now. That article remains unpublished, sitting silently in a virtual drawer.

It might surprise you to know that I really enjoy doing Christmas shows. I like the feeling of satisfaction upon reaching Christmas and feeling like I’ve earned a day or two off. I love the feeling of camaraderie between the cast and crew. I like having a routine for a bit. Having a physical and vocal work-out during the run of a show resets me and whips my voice and stamina into shape. I have done a production over Christmas nearly every year for the past five years, but these have either been in London or have been short enough runs for me not to miss home too much. In contrast, we began rehearsals for this production at the start of October and it is STILL GOING, so this is the longest I’ve been away from London, and from my life there, for years. There are many positives about doing a long job. Aside from the artistic satisfaction there is of course also a weekly pay-check, and the opportunity to make new friends, but I must admit I am missing home. I miss London but more than that I miss improvising, which is my community and therefore my home.

And, just as I did during lockdown, I miss audiences. That might seem like a strange thing to say given that I am performing for an audience often twice a day (sometimes at the absolute crack of dawn) but let me explain. This is in many ways a traditional play: proscenium arch, naturalistic design, tightly scripted. The script is very funny, written as it is by the excellent David Reed and Humphrey Ker, who comedy fans may know from The Penny Dreadfuls sketch group. There is a high gag rate, quite rare in theatre, which makes the show a great watch for comedy savvy audiences! Adding to this there are some brand new songs written by these blokes called Andrew Lloyd something and Tim…Rice I think he said his name was? Needless to say it’s an honour to be among the first people to sing their new songs, especially as it’s their first collaboration for years. It’s been an adventure, and I’m proud to be a small part in this unique comedy play, packed full of witty lines, featuring an excellent cast and talented musicians.

All that being said, I miss interaction and improvisation so much. When I look back over the other scripted Christmas shows I’ve done since 2020 I realise that I was given pockets of time in each one in which I could improvise and interact with the audience, whether that was improvising raps for kids, improvising songs, or talking to the audience in cat-language. (That last one was an absolute favourite for me). This is the element I miss: connection, play, spontaneity. The potential to change the mood in the room rather than having to accept it. I miss other things too. I miss walking over Tower Bridge after teaching an improv class, remembering the nice things students said to each other, glancing up at The Shard to guide me home. I miss stepping onto a stage and not knowing what is about to happen. I miss performing with other improvisers for the first time (legends sometimes) in front of a packed crowd. I miss being able to play any character in the wide spectrum of humanity, not to mention the animal kingdom. I miss having excited chats with fellow makers, about projects they’re starting or classes they’ve taught. I miss getting the train to do a Showstopper touring gig and chatting en route about an idea someone is working on; a show, a sitcom, an opera. Constantly bumping little ideas around, spending time with my friends who are also my collaborators, hoping and dreaming together and making each other’s ideas better.

So I enter the final two weeks with gratitude but also excitement. I’m grateful for work, for meeting a lovely bunch of people and for sharing a stage with so much talent, and I am hugely excited to step back into my old life which never feels old and always feels new.

NEWS

My solo character show Susan Harrison: Should I Still Be Doing This? is going to Leicester Comedy Festival! Friday 13th Feb at The Big Difference.

I’m performing in the London 50-Hour Improvathon at The Pleasance Theatre.
It runs from Feb 27th - 1st March and I’ll be on from 11am on 1st March until the end.
See below for some GREAT ticket deals which have just started.
1 ) Group of 10 discount
2 ) Pay the hour the episode starts (1am = £1, 3am = £3 overnight)

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While I was developing the show in London, various people from comedy backgrounds gave me advice which, while not aligned with improv, was useful to sharpen the characters. Someone told me not to rely on interaction/improv while I was trying to improve the writing. This was a good note, but it made for some painful work in progress shows. Others said I should be less nice to the audience, but that’s for stand ups and edgy clowns, that’s not for me.

Last night’s crowd was the busiest its been so far, and it was a room full of sweet, straight-down-the-line, audience members. By which I mean, it wasn’t full of performers, or friends, or people who are used to joining in. So it was a great test, and I think I’m right in saying that people who don’t usually put themselves out there, found themselves joining in. People’s hands went up so quickly to ask questions in a character Q&A, women from the front, centre and back of the crowd defended a particular character, and someone shouted out “We love you Susan!” at the end. It was all very heartwarming*.

My style of interaction is not like stand up, I can’t rip the piss out of people unless they deserve it, and it’s not like clown either. This has meant that at times I’ve been worried that the kind of interaction I do is not the kind of interaction that ‘proper comedy people’ want to see. There are cool clowns who would be, I dunno, force-feeding their audience custard creams while naked, or downing people’s drinks and smashing the plastic cup on their boobs, but that is not who I am. It’s definitely not my audience either. Last night I took someone’s pint just to demonstrate with it and the person let out a tiny yelp of distress. I gave it back pretty quickly! I also can’t do the stand up route of tearing people to shreds, because it is the opposite of the improv ethos, which is about building people up. This has meant that at times I’ve been worried that I’m too tame or not edgy enough. Last night though, I knew I was right to stick to my guns, because by not going down the edgy route, the show is allowing people to play. Of course: play! That’s what I needed to lean into! The answer was there all along, wearing a yellow hat and a fake moustache waving happily to me and saying “It always comes back to improv.”

*Disclaimer: I’m aware that not every night will be as fun as this (!) and no doubt there will be quieter or tougher crowds again, but to know it can be like this when everything lines up is encouraging. For balance I also want to say I’ve been very unwell up here, so much so that I had to cancel a show. Being ill meant I couldn’t build on the momentum of positive reviews as I was too under-energised to flyer, so it’s taken a while to find my audience. I felt a bit hopeless for a while, but I am now getting my energy back and am finally ready to not be a hermit again! If you are up here too then I hope you’re in good health and if you’re not then I hope you’re getting some much needed rest.

NEWS

Susan Harrison: Should I still be doing this?
My solo show continues at The Gilded Balloon, 7.40pm each day, excluding the 12th and 18th.

Showstopper! The Improvised Musical
I’ll be on from the 13th until the end of the run (excluding 14th and 18th) at The Pleasance Grand, 5.20pm.

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In the grand scheme of things I’m aware that doing a solo show is not very important, but the trick of the fringe is that it makes you think it DEFINITELY IS IMPORTANT, which (if you’re not careful) can play havoc with your mental health.
So here is a letter to my future self, which I hope will serve as a reminder to keep things in perspective as the month rumbles on. If you are taking a show to the fringe, or doing something else which is equal parts silly and all consuming then maybe it’ll be useful for you too.

A letter to future me.
To be read during Week 3 of the Fringe.

Dear Future Me,

1. Well done, you’re doing it! Yeah you’re knackered, coughing up black phlegm and have trench foot but nonetheless you said you’d do it and you have!

2. What you are doing is not very important in the grand scheme of things. No really, it’s not. Look at *gestures hopelessly* the world, and everything that’s going on. In comparison to that, the fringe is a bit of fluff on the edges of reality. Try not to place too much importance on it.

3. Remember to go to Tescos today and pick up some more cheese and salad. Those emergency sandwiches you eat between shows aren’t going to make themselves.

4. You will feel better if you have a swim/go to the gym this morning. Get out of bed. Otherwise what was the point of that one-off monthly membership?

5. Listen: some reviewers aren’t going to like what you do. Your show is a bit weird and it’s not for everyone and that’s ok. Stop dwelling on it. One or two reviewers have liked your show and that’s great, but try not to care too much about that either. In any case, I thought you said you weren’t going to read any reviews this year? STOP READING THEM.

6. Watch out for that pot hole!

7. Please cancel that gig on your one day off. I know when you bumped into that person you said “Sounds good!!!” but I’m sure deep down they saw the crazed look in your eyes and won’t be surprised when you pull out.

8. Yes it is a pain in the arse to have to use a launderette in these digs, and it requires an app and costs loads of money and takes 10 hours, but it does feel nice to have clean clothes, and remember you need to wash two sets of costume this week, one for your solo show and one for Showstopper. Bring a book and accept that this will be your morning.

9. I said watch out for that pothole!

10. Hug a friend.

11. Ask for help with making a replacement prop for the one that broke in the show last night. Lots of people have offered to help and although you’re used to doing everything yourself it is ok, and even a good thing, to ask for help occasionally.

12. Buy your technician a doughnut. He looks hungry.

NEWS

Susan Harrison: Should I still be doing this?
I am doing my solo character show at The Gilded Balloon, from 30th July - 24th August (excluding 12th and 18th). Please come along and/or spread the word. If you are thinking of coming do book in advance, it’s incredibly heartening to see that people have booked!

Showstopper! The Improvised Musical
I will be in Showstopper at The Pleasance Grand, from 12th - 24th (excluding 14th and 18th) and it’s on all month. Come any night of the month for a guaranteed good time.

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I'm not normally one to give advice but it was suggested via instagram, so here goes!

You are more than this career you’ve chosen to do. Perhaps, like me, you’ll fall in love with it entirely and dedicate your life to being on stage, collaborating, making weird shows, big shows, small shows. But even if you fall in love with it wholeheartedly, please remember that it doesn’t define you, and that you have so much more to offer than what is on your Spotlight CV. Yes it’s great to be able to do a passable Dublin accent, but it’s even better to be a kind friend, or a decent sister.

Make your own work. I would not get 99% of the opportunities I get, if I didn’t generate my own work. Also, I wouldn’t be happy. If you are driven to create, then create. If you love comedy and want to make sketches, then you can make them on your phone for free. If you want to write then write, and enter your plays into a free to enter competition. If you want to write for screen then take a look at the BBC Writers Room for free advice and opportunities. There are more schemes and competitions for young people than for people my age, so strike while the iron is hot, and by hot I mean young. (Although in the eyes of the industry hot and young are of course interchangeable.) There are many reasons to make your own work, not least because work begets work. Also, having your own work out there will help people get to know you as a performer or artist. Most importantly of all, it will give you a sense of agency. In an industry which will continuously ghost you, making your own work allows you to hang onto some dignity. Keep some power in an industry which, at times, can make you feel powerless.
Now I’m aware that not everyone has the desire to write or to make things, and if that’s the case then can you be the organiser? Could you gather a group of friends together, form your own theatre company and be the producer? Maybe you could make devised work together and in doing so, spur each other on. Groups are brilliant because they enable you to build ideas together, and because by being in a gang you hold each other accountable, and get more done. There are practical advantages too. In my first sketch troupe there were eight of us, which meant that if we ever needed to pay for anything we could split the cost eight ways. If we needed to hire a room above a pub to rehearse for instance, it was only a fiver each. Speaking of which…

Build a relationship with a pub/venue. Some pubs will let you rehearse or perform in their space for free. There was one pub we made friends with (way back in the mists of time) where we could rehearse upstairs for free, because the space was being renovated. The landlord couldn’t hire it out until the renovation was finished, which meant that the space was just sitting there doing nothing. So we rehearsed amongst the dust. Heady days! What I’m saying is, it’s all do-able. It is possible to find free/cheap space to rehearse in (especially if you live outside of London) so go forth and find it!

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Don’t wait until you know the “correct” way of doing things. In my first sketch group we didn’t necessarily know what we were doing, but we made a start and learnt that way. The same is true of the first play I wrote and made with my friend Claire Lamont. We didn’t know how to put on a play, but there was a local South London festival which was free to enter, and with free rehearsal space we had no overheads, so we and a couple of friends, gave it a go. I was working in a soul-destroying telesales job at the time to pay my rent, so making a play on the side was very good for my damaged soul!

If you work in theatre, remember that the company is one big team. This includes the stage management team who are invariably working longer hours than you, especially in tech week. Show them some love, turn up on time for them and read the call-sheets they painstakingly send. Having a great DSM on a show is gold and I love them. My partner is a stage manager so I am massively biased, but the fact still stands.

Forget the audition once you’ve done it. Easier said than done obviously. In the past I’d be reluctant to make plans which would clash with the job that I hadn’t got yet. This way madness lies. I had a (VERY rare) audition recently and have more or less forgotten about it. I enjoyed auditioning but am under no illusion that I’m likely to get recalled because the odds are stacked against me. I’m still booking in non-acting work, and if the recall comes off it will be a nice surprise, and if it doesn’t I’ll have future work booked in. In short: hold on lightly to all potential jobs. Especially the ones you really want. Don’t lose your heart too soon my friend.

Don’t do a million takes on your self tape. The sun is shining and life is short. Or do, if you want to, I mean, you do you. But personally, if I’m taping and a siren goes off, or a fox has a fit (both of which happen a lot because I live in South London) I usually won’t bother to retake it. My friend does about three takes maximum and he is a brilliant actor and a consummate professional, so I have tried to follow his lead in this.
Ignore this advice if it’s for an absolute dream job (!) but if it’s a self tape for thrush cream then I think we can all agree three attempts is enough. Oh and obviously only send as many as they ask for - which is usually one or two takes.

Book the holiday!
Live your life.

Find an in between job that you like, which will offer you some flexibility.
I have tried all kinds of jobs over the years such as; temping, receptionist at a GP surgery, nursery assistant, telesales operator, working in a bookshop, market researcher, person who hands out free papers, roleplay actor for police training, and being an access worker. I’m lucky to have (eventually) found improv teaching. It took me years to find it and to get experienced enough for it to become my main thing. I now teach for various places (day and evening) and also lead workshops and perform improv at corporates. Improv teaching has become much more than an in between job for me, I genuinely love it and it’s a big part of my life. There are all kinds of options though. Some people I know work as PA’s part time or look after a company’s accounts, others direct and write or compose, some teach in schools, some are tour guides or restaurant guides, some are workshop facilitators, others are graphic designers, or voice teachers, or singing teachers. Go for it. Enjoy finding your non-acting job and don’t be ashamed of having it. In my twenties I just did acting, but that’s not realistic these days. Unless you’re a name, or literally from the aristocracy, you’ll probably need to have more than one income stream. It isn’t possible for most people to rely solely on acting these days, partly due to lack of opportunity, but also because even when work does comes in it’s often not paid enough to meet current living costs. I did a play in London a while ago at a nice, well respected theatre. The contract was what’s called an Equity Sub-Rep agreement, which in laymen’s terms meant that the wages were greater than they’d be for a fringe show, but less than they’d be for a West End show. After my agent took off 15%, I was earning less than I would have been with all my non-acting work. So I had to supplement my professional (well regarded & very hard to get) acting job during rehearsals, with a night a week teaching. That’s mad! It’s mad that it’s come to that, but that’s the reality, and again it highlights the importance of having an additional job.

Finally, and with complete inevitability I’m going to say: take improv classes. Learning how to be present and comfortable on stage with nothing will make you a better actor. Loosening up your brain will make you a quicker, more productive writer, and if you like comedy then improv will make you a better comedian. Crucially, improv will give you the opportunity to get on stage. You won’t have to wait to be cast in a show, you’ll be able to just get up and perform and have the time of your life with a bunch of brilliant humans.

Oh and if you do a lot of touring, buy a set of travel cutlery.

Solo show news

Should I Still Be Doing This? - The next London work in progress of my solo character show, is TOMORROW (Tuesday) at Vaulty Towers, 10th June, 7.30pm.
Come and see what I’ve been working on and help me experiment further! It’ll be a fun night of alternative comedy, and I would absolutely love to see you there.

Podcast news

Leyline High Rewind - This is a new podcast from myself, Gemma Arrowsmith and Thomas Nelstrop in which we dive into the huge back catalogue of weird spooky kids' show Leyline High (1972-2002). You remember it, right? Of course you do…

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For those of you who are not improv nerds like me, short-form improv refers to stand alone improvised games, in which the rules/structure are spelt out beforehand, whereas in long-form improv, the game of the scene/themes or narrative are discovered as you go.

Full disclosure, I like ALL kinds of improv; long-form, short-form, musical, narrative, Chicago-style, Keith Johnstone style, organic, self raising and yes even lactose free.

Arguably if you are improvising at a high level you should be able to jump into any kind of improvised show. Musical improv is an exception, because it relies on additional skills outside of improv such as rhythm, singing, harmonising, movement, dancing and musicality. On the whole though, most improv is just making stuff up on the spot. It involves initiating, listening, responding, relinquishing control, being in the moment, and being playful.

Part of the reason why I felt annoyed to see short-form written about so dismissively is because I have fond memories attached to it. I did my first short-form gig when I was new to improv, and I look back on that chapter of my life as a happy period, full of random gigs, cheap rent, and light-hearted friendships. The world of improv that I entered felt like the place I’d always been, while at the same time being a new discovery, and one which had a lasting impact on my life.

I initially encountered improvisation some time before this, whilst at drama school in Scotland. The ten weeks that I spent improvising in acting class there, were my favourite part of the three year course. What I didn’t know then, was that there was an ecosystem of improvisation all over the country, and indeed the world.

After graduating from drama school, while living in London, I learnt about Monkeytoast, an improv company which was set up and run by Canadian improviser David Shore. It was here that I learnt to improvise. We’d gather in a room in a synagogue every week, a medley of people, most of whom were not actors and who were there for a variety of reasons. Some had done improv before, one guy was there because he was an adrenalin junky, another worked in TV production. The class became an exciting part of my week, and the end of term show sealed the deal. I really enjoyed David’s classes, and clicked with the Chicago style long-form that was taught. I loved the rhythm of the collective comedy that would emerge on stage. There was nothing more satisfying than someone coming in with a really good button (punchline) and someone else ending the scene with a sweep*. Bliss!

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*A sweep is a way of ending the scene by running across the scene.

It was in my Monkeytoast class that I met fellow improviser Andrew Gentilli, who invited me to do a short-form gig at a fringe festival in Stratford Upon Avon. His group The Inflatables, needed an extra person, so he asked if I’d sub in for them. I said yes, because, duh, I was doing improv classes so of course I was going to say yes, but at that point I’d never actually done short-form before. I kept this to myself and privately hoped that it would rely on the same set of skills as other types of improv. Thankfully, it did. I remember getting in the car with a bunch of improvisers I’d never met before and going to rehearse in Andrew’s parents house. When I look back, I feel so grateful to have been instantly accepted by those relaxed and funny performers. I can see us standing in the kitchen, the sun streaming through the windows, one of them casually filling me in on what games we’d be doing. A guitar in the living room, us breaking into song. The group were fun and kind. Following Andrew’s lead, they instantly trusted me, which in turn empowered me to do a good job on stage, because I wasn’t using up valuable headspace doubting myself.

That weekend I spent in Stratford Upon Avon doing short-form was one of the most generous experiences I’ve had in improv, which is why it was jarring to see it described in print as “competitive.” (Yes I’m still very much dying on this hill.) Believing that UK short-form is competitive is like believing that the points Dara Ó Briain use to dish out on British panel show Mock The Week meant anything. The “competitive” element is just a framing device for the audience. (Ok I’ve died on the hill now, resurrection follows. How topical.)

Not long after Stratford, Andrew, having been inspired by seeing American improv group PGraph, went on to form a new group called Storybag, which he invited me to join. This was to become my first proper improv group. Andrew skilfully hand picked improvisers who, when combined, made a really good ensemble. In some ways we were quite different from each other, but at our core I think we all shared the exact same type of playfulness. In addition we were all interested in telling stories, exploring relationships between the characters on stage, while at the same time being very at home with deeply silly and weird stuff. Even more crucially perhaps, everyone in the group was easy going, so there was never any competition or drama. I treasure the times we spent together, rehearsing regularly in Andrew’s flat, or now and again hiring a room in a pub to rehearse. We loved what we did. We put on our own improv night for a bit, we taught ourselves how to improvise a narrative, and we created an improvised show inspired by the writing of Haruki Murakami. Murakami was my favourite author and I felt that the magic realism of his books; featuring talking cats, enigmatic women and people sliding into other worlds, would suit improv in general, and our improv tendencies in particular.
Over time our lives changed; some members of the group moved out of London, some left the UK, others turned their focus to scripted comedy or to acting, some had kids. We let go lightly. In much the same way as we’d all found each other, when we moved away from each other there was no bad feeling, no resentment, no drama.

There’s something magical about doing a creative project just for pleasure, for the pursuit of the art-form, as opposed to doing it for a job. I understand why people want to try and professionalise their improv groups, but take it from me as someone who now does this (mostly) as a job, there’s a lot to be said for doing it for the sheer joy of making a show with people you click with. With low stakes and no pressure. If you have that now, with people whose sense of humour lights you up, then hold tight to it, and let go lightly when it’s time for you all to move on.

News

Susan Harrison: Should I still be doing this? Work in progress: solo show.
Wednesday April 23rd, Glitch, London 8.30pm.

Workshops: I’m teaching some improv workshops this Spring/Summer.

Scenes and feedback
Wednesday 28th May, London, 7.00pm-9.00pm

Acting for Improvisers (Day long workshop)
Saturday 5th July, London, 10.00am-5.00pm

Character for improv - all day intensive
Saturday 19th July, London 10.00am-5.00pm

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Recently myself and fellow writer-performer Lucy Trodd filmed a proof of concept for our new sitcom, which was a big, exciting, nerve-wracking thing to do. We did it all ourselves, calling in lots of favours, on the stringiest of shoestring budgets. The team were great and our director was very much on the same page as us throughout the process, which was a reassuring feeling. It’s not always the case. There have been occasions when we’ve had to compromise humour-wise, or been messed around by gatekeepers. All of which is very much par for the course, and anyway it’s a miracle to get anything made these days isn’t it? So to be able to make our show with a nice team, all of whom understood the comedic tone, felt very fortunate. The older I get, the more I care about the kindness of people who I choose to work with. I realise that sounds drippy, but I honestly do think life is too short to work with arseholes, and I’m delighted to have got to the stage where it’s now GOOD EGGS ONLY within the work I make myself. I’m looking forward to sharing our sitcom with you...I think it’s the thing we’ve made that is the closest representation of our type of comedy.

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Immediately after the shoot day, I had to prepare my solo WIP show. I felt “dready,” as my friend Jennie would say. I was trying out a new character, I’d made new sound cues, a whole new structure to remember, and I’d added a bit at the top where I talk as myself, which felt slightly exposing. I actually really like talking to audiences as myself, but it’s not an area I have huge experience in, so it still feels unnerving beforehand. My director was away so I worked on this iteration of the show by myself which was quite lonely. But as my wise nephew said “at least you have creative control” and he was right about that. As soon as I got on stage, I had a great time. I absolutely love audiences. Teaching improv has helped with this. When I started teaching ten years ago I tried to come across as super professional and in control at all times, which may have made my approach a bit presentational. Nowadays I’m much more myself in class. So much so, that every now and again I’ll realise I’ve said something weird like “Could you play this character like a marshmallow who is having an existential crises?” Or I’ll be mid-way through explaining an exercise and do an accidental dance move, because I feel so at home. The jury’s out as to how that comes across (lol) but anyway being myself in front of people has definitely helped me with the standup-adjacent part of my show.

The day after my solo show, I set off on a library tour of These Folk, the improvised folk musical I do. It went really well but it was overwhelming doing one big thing after another. I sometimes wonder if not having any processing time from one project to the next, does weird things to your nervous system. There’s a lot of adrenalin that comes with making a show. Sometimes the preparation has been months in advance and requires you to have multiple roles; producer, performer, art department, writer, marketing assistant, social media expert, PR manager etc. After it’s completed you basically stand there holding your soul in your hand desperately shouting -

“Can anyone see this thing I made?? I hope you can see this thing I’ve made! If you see it, I hope you like it!! And if you like it FEEL FREE TO SAY SO PUBLICLY!!!!!”

I love Stephen Sondheim’s song Finishing The Hat (from Sunday in the Park with George), on the the creative process. Some people say this song is about George (the titular character) being a dick to his partner because: art. But it is really about the process of making art, about how obsessed you can get with a project, how it takes over until you’ve made it as perfect as it can be, and how the rest of the world fades away into the background until it’s finished. My favourite lyric is “Look I made a hat, where there never was a hat.” I love this line. George isn’t claiming he’s made something amazing, he’s simply saying “I made a thing. There wasn’t a thing and now there is a thing.” When you finish a project there is no denying that simple truth, no matter how much of a perfectionist you are. And I very much am one.
(what an imperfect sentence that was).

So how best to mark the end of a project? After the project is finished - what then?
In my experience you just finish the hat and immediately chuck it on the floor and run out of the door to make the next hat. And there are so many God-damn hats! My cupboard doesn’t shut properly because they’re all spilling out. I should really put the finished ones on display but I don’t, because there’s no time and there’s always some imperfection I notice retrospectively which makes me too embarrassed to put them out there. And yet, maybe I should? Maybe we all should take a moment to acknowledge that we’ve made a thing, to feel happy and proud and catch our breath before moving on.

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NEWS

(*with corresponding hats)

Lauren and Sue and friends: Friday 14th March
This is a new show, so book now to be the first to witness whatever it ends up being!
*Wide brimmed, floppy, spring-time hat.

Glasgow International Comedy Festival: Friday 28th March
My solo WIP: please spread the word if you live in Glasgow/know someone who does.
*Don’t say Tam o’ Shanter don’t say Tam o’ Shanter.

Comedy Store Players: Sunday 6th April
I’m guesting with the Comedy Store Players for the second time. Exciting!
*Cap from the 90’s saying “I ❤️ Whose Line is it Anyway”

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Sticking with the food theme, last weekend I performed in “These Folk": an improvised folk musical” and in the show I played a character who loved fried chicken. In real life when I go to a chicken shop I just have chips, but my partner has chicken, so although I’ve never eaten fried chicken myself, I’ve handled the boxes and put them in the bin. I know how soft the cardboard gets, so when I was miming the boxes on stage I mimed the ease at which the boxes squash down. It’s such a tiny detail from real life, but all of these tiny details add up in an improvised show. They can make things come alive for the audience and help the improviser to imagine their character’s environment and situation.

Last night I was teaching a character course for improvisers and I led an exercise called “Big characters instant depth”, created by Steve Roe, of Hoopla. In it, the improvisers play big outlandish characters, and then at some point the teacher stops them and asks them to say something real, i.e something that is true to them. It led to excellent scenes; a mermaid who had someone coming round to look at the damp in their flat, a devil who was annoyed by how long they’d spent in luggage reclaim, a wizard who had to tidy up because their Mum was coming to stay. I mean - great stuff right? The beauty of this exercise is that no one has to reach for an idea because everyone is just using things that are true to them.

Side note: I love teaching this group, they are open to trying whatever I throw at them and I feel like we can get into the analytical nitty-gritty of it all too.

So I’m trying to smuggle in some of my own thoughts and feeling into my solo show. Obviously this doesn’t apply to all of my characters. I will never know what it’s like to be an unrepentant ex prime minister who crashed the economy with merry abandon for instance. Likewise I am not a human-hating panda (another of my characters), but I am trying to thread in ideas and feeling I have about being a woman, about things I’ve observed online and about getting older. It feels a bit exposing but also exciting. I’m doing a work in progress on Sunday so I’m hoping I’ll learn whether this is a good route to go down. I have two (possibly three) completely new characters to try out, as well as a big re-write of another character and a few visual things to try as well. It will probably be very chaotic, but hopefully it will be fun chaos. I’m sticking to my guns of not leaning too hard on interaction/improvisation at this point in order to concentrate on improving the writing. Wish me luck with that.

Right. I’m off to eat a cheddar cheese, rocket and tomato sandwich on gluten free bread which will have to be toasted because otherwise GF bread falls apart and you may as well be eating cardboard.

Bye!

News

SOLO SHOW (WIP) Sunday 16th February @ The Pen Theatre.
This is a work in progress of my solo character comedy show and is part of a double bill with David Hoskin who is a brilliant mime and improviser. I’m excited to see David’s show as I’ve never seen mimed horror before!

THESE FOLK: LIBRARY TOUR
We are doing a version of our show for children in various North London libraries.
Edgware Library, Hale Lane, Monday 17th Feb 10.00am-11.00am
Finchley Church End Library Monday 17th Feb 3.00-4.00pm
Colindale Library Thursday 20th Feb 10.00am-11.00am
East Finchley Library Thursday 20th Feb 3.00pm-4.00pm
Golders Green Library 156 Golders Green Road Friday 21st Feb 10.00am-11.00am
Chipping Barnett Library Friday 21st Feb 3.00-4.00pm

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2024 was a tough year for the creative industries, in particular for Film and TV which really took a battering. As a result there wasn’t much work for us “non-famouses” and there were hardly any opportunities to audition, but despite that (or perhaps because of it) people were making things, and things were still happening.

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At the start of 2024 I was terrified of the great expanse of NO WORK which seemed to be opening up before me. I panicked and started putting myself on all kinds of databases and email alerts for ‘proper’ jobs. I had an interview with an agency about temping and at one point I texted my friend “how do you get a job in a shop these days?” In the end I didn’t need a normal job, which was just as well because no one was offering me one! It’s seemingly just as hard to get a temp job in an office as it is to get a job as a performer at the moment. Thank God for improv teaching then, which is very rewarding most of the time, while also being quite full on. During the year I took on a LOT of improv teaching; adult evening classes, drama schools, one-off workshops, my own courses, and a term at a University. It was great but the juggle sent me a bit insane. I learnt a lot. I learnt (in no particular order) that I’m more anxious than I used to be, that in the eyes of a first year drama student I am basically geriatric, and that the word ‘Gucci’ can be used an adjective.

As the year went on, some performance work miraculously came in, all of it coming indirectly either through stuff I’d made myself, or through improv, which is something we all make together. One of my friends said recently that she wasn’t sure if she’d still be acting were it not for improvisation and I know what she means. Improv literally provides me with work as a performer (this year I was lucky enough to perform with Showstopper, Mischief Movie Night, The Comedy Store and one or two shows for Austentatious), and it also provides me with the opportunity to create stuff and regularly perform for an audience. Being candid, this year I had no TV, film, or commercial work, and no work doing scripted plays. However, as well as improv work, I did have comedy work, audio/radio work, writing work and two brilliant R&D’s, one for a play and one for a musical. During the entirety of 2024 I only got one job through the traditional method of auditioning. On the one hand this is depressing, it’s a shame that there is hardly anything I (and many others) can audition for at the moment. On the other hand perhaps it’s gratifying that 99% of my work came through me, because all of the things I’ve chipped away at for years are finally resulting in some paid work; playing at the Comedy Store, being asked to appear on a comedy panel, doing character voices on audio projects, writing a radio show etc.

So, thank God for making my own work. Thank God for improvising and being able to get on stage and “show off” as my friend (accurately) put it, even when the industry is dead. Thank God for community, for the big web of performers that stretches out through London, the UK and across the world, with a shared understanding and a shared love of making and pretending.

Near the close of this year I had a couple of interesting jobs in close succession. I did a big Christmas corporate job with lots of improvisers and then, just before the door slammed shut on 2024, I recorded my first audio book. The corporate job involved a huge troop of experienced improvisers. It’s always nice when we gather en mass, ready to attack the task ahead of us, like the most approachable army in the world. In contrast, recording an audio book was a mostly solo endeavour, but even here I was working with a producer who was keeping an ear on my voice, words and intonation. The producer was himself also an actor. Few people can just do one job anymore, but perhaps we’re the more interesting for it…

Collaboration sustained me this year, and it will be here when the industry is not. The brilliant Lucy Trodd and I have a couple of new projects that we’re working on and I can’t wait to get going with these. 2024 also gave me a brand new collaboration with writer/performers Gemma Arrowsmith and Thom Nelstrop which provided an unexpected glimmer of joy. The three of us are are really excited by our idea… and personally I’m very excited about the lack of gatekeeping around it.

As I write this I’m sitting on my sofa in a cold flat by my Christmas tree, which has remained resolutely up for slightly too long. It makes me genuinely happy to see all the ornaments given as first night gifts from various shows I’ve been in over the years; Aladdin, Pinocchio, Showstoppers, Cinderella, a hedgehog from my solo show, and even a bauble representing a burlesque show I *stage managed in Zagreb.

The industry may be in the doldrums but the baubles shine on, as do the collaborations between creative people all over the country; the happy scheming, the persistent plans and projects that spring up and continue to take root, even when the climate is incredibly cold.

*stage managed is perhaps generous, ‘pressed buttons for’ would be more accurate.

NEWS

Saturday February 1st.
These Folk: an Improvised Folk Musical will be on at Hoopla, London Bridge. We hardly ever have London gigs so please spread the word to any improv fans as we’d love to pack it out!

Sunday February 16th.
WIP (work in progress) for my solo show at The Pen Theatre. This is a double bill with the fantastically physical performer David Hoskin. Do come along, we’d love to know what you think.

Those of you who have been reading this newsletter for a while will know that I have been in the process of making a solo show, but, having taken a break from it, I have struggled to return. This is unusual for me. Normally I find it easy to get something down on paper, but this time it’s been tricky.

I had an Outside Eye session with renowned comedy consultant/director/legend, Dec Munro, who watched some of my material and gave me notes on what he’d seen. He was great, had lots of perceptive insights and notes, and the whole thing was very bracing.

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The process of showing Dec my material consisted of me performing the show (as it is so far) in a minuscule room with glass walls. A lot of what I do is about interacting with the audience so performing my work to one person was pretty embarrassing. At one point I was literally standing in a glass cube, classical music playing for an awkward amount of time, while dressed as a giant vegetable. It really was “cringe”, as a young person would say and is now probably out of date, rendering it even more cringe. Or crange. Or whatever the new word is.

I think Alice Lowe expressed this feeling of embarrassment best on the platform that many of us are trying/failing to leave:

Stand up and conventional comedy usually seeks guaranteed outcomes from audience responses, but this is not necessarily the case for alternative comedy. I don’t want guaranteed outcomes, I want to adapt to whatever an audience member says. This meant that when I was sharing my material I was having to improvise responses as to what audience members might say, as well as improvising my character’s responses. This is where improv directors come into their own. They can do audience participation for days, in effect playing numerous audience members. That being said, it can be useful for alternative acts to have an Outside Eye who isn’t from an improv/clown background, as it means that their focus will be on other (weaker) things that need improving. I certainly found this to be the case, which meant that the whole experience was tough, but good for me. Like going to the Gym and only marginally less sweaty. Dec left me with some solid advice too: he advised me not to lean on the interaction/loose moments while developing the show. Painful though this will inevitably be, it has motivated me to improve the writing.

Initially the process of unravelling all my choices in the session made me question everything I had made to the point where subsequently I was a bit scared of writing anything in case it was bad. (Being inside my brain is so FUN you guys!!) In addition I’m trying to channel my own feelings into the show more than I usually would, and this has made me nervous about committing my ideas to paper. The whole thing requires a lot of thinking and there isn’t much space to think in life is there? Unless you never have to work I guess, but who are these people who just don’t have to work? And how are they living in London???

Anyway, after many fruitless attempts at re-writing bits of my show and coming up against a brick wall, I finally had a Saturday night off so I forced myself to get literally anything down on paper. I told myself that it could be terrible as long as I made a start, and once I started I eventually got into the flow. It was a very rock and roll Saturday night, tapping away on my laptop, accompanied by the sounds of Halloween partying and Diwali fireworks outside.

There are a few things that help me when I’m feeling creatively stuck. Most of these approaches I’ve been using for years, but the first one I came across recently and is expressed in a way which, on hearing it, made total sense to me. If you’re struggling with a project then I hope these thoughts might help you as well.

Work general to specific

Mike Birbiglia’s Working it Out podcast, is a frequent source of creative comfort and inspiration for me. In each episode Birbiglia chats to a comedian/writer about comedy, life, process. In this episode, comedian Matteo Lane talks about the lessons he learnt at Art School, where he was instructed to ‘Work general to specific’, to ‘Work towards the masterpiece not at the masterpiece.’ As a comedian Lane has used this approach - getting the general shape down first and working his way in - ever since. I love this! You can listen to this discussion at 32 minutes in, but to be honest it’s well worth a listen to the whole episode. Not least to hear Lane’s incredible impression of Judy Garland.

Forgive yourself the horror of the first draft

I’ve also heard this referred to as writing “the vomit draft” which is gross but accurate. Forgiving yourself a messy first draft, is very much in line with the improv mindset. Improvisers are encouraged to go with their first thought, the thought that is obvious to them. To put this in writing terms, the aim of creating the first draft is to get your initial ideas out, and delay judgement, so that your editing brain can tidy it up later.

Not this…

My writing partner Lucy Trodd and I use this phrase all the time, meaning “This is the kind of joke/idea I mean but it’s not exactly this and we’ll eventually find a better version.” But “Not this” is catchier.

Do the thing

Again this chimes with improv, specifically narrative improv. When two beginner improvisers are doing a scene, for example set on Mount Everest, they will often argue about whether they should or shouldn’t go up there, one of them invariably has forgotten the map, another one has shoes that leak, etc. It’s at that point that “do the thing” becomes valuable. Just do it. Set off, cut to the summit, or even better, be up the mountain already. Similarly, rather than waiting until the circumstances are exactly right for writing, just do the thing. Get on with it. The Pomodoro Technique helps with this if you’re totally struck. Set a timer for 25 minutes. When it goes off you probably won’t want to stop writing…

Create deadlines

Put a date in the diary for when you next have to share your work. Preferably while dressed as a giant vegetable for maximum humiliation.

NEWS

Hopping.

Hopping, written by Lucy Trodd and I, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 last month, and is now available to listen to on BBC Sounds. It’s set in the 1930’s amid the world of hop-picking. The cast are fantastic, we really enjoyed writing it and the process from start to end was a huge learning curve in multiple ways.
Listen to Hopping here

Mischief Movie Night (In)
Sadler’s Wells London, and live-streamed.

I’m in the Christmas run of this anarchic, silly show from the Mischief Theatre team. These are my dates which you can watch IRL or stream:
December 21st (7pm and 9pm), 22nd (3pm and 6pm) and 23rd (7pm and 9pm).
Buy Mischief tickets here

Stay tuned in the new year for WIP dates and to hear about a couple of other exciting new projects coming soon…

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I didn’t take a solo show to the fringe this year and the FOMO was real, but I’m hoping that this means when I do take my show to Edinburgh it’ll be in a solid place. Fingers crossed. Instead, I took part in the London run of Mischief Movie Night and popped up to the Edinburgh Fringe with Showstopper! The Improvised Musical for a week. What this meant was that I did 24 improvised narrative shows over the month and two nights of Paul Merton and Suki Webster’s improv show, so 26 shows in total. It’s been years since I’ve done that many improvised shows in a row, and there were definitely moments when I wondered what it does to a person’s brain to be improvising full-on, high pressured comedy shows almost every day.

I found Edinburgh a bit tough on my emotional well-being, as is sometimes the case. It felt strange to come up for the final week, when the fringe was in full swing. For many it was a “final push” but for me it was very much an initial push, especially since, after the fringe ended, I’d be returning to another week in Movie Night. It was all a bit discombobulating. It made me think about how important it is for performers to look after our mental health, particularly with regards to improv, which is such a personal type of performance. Unlike conventional actors, we improvisers conjure everything up from our own weird/happy/sad subconscious. It’s similar with stand up and clown too of course, in which the performers also bring their own psyches to the stage. When you throw in the relationship between performer and audience and, in the case of improv, the interpersonal relationships between cast-mates, it’s even more important to be in a good place, emotionally speaking. Like anyone, there were occasional days throughout August when I wasn’t feeling my best, and when that was the case it was challenging to bring joy to the stage, and to stay relaxed and open. It’s hard to “follow the fun” if you’re not having fun…

Anyway, here are a few things that I found helpful to think about. I hope they will be of use to you too, or maybe you will have other techniques to add.

Millican’s Law
This is a well established comedy rule which was invented by comedian Sarah Millican. The idea is that, regardless of whether you had an amazing show or a horrific show, you’re only allowed to dwell on it until 11am the next day. This is such a healthy idea! If you go into your next show (whether it’s stand up, character comedy, clown or improv) attached to the joy or pain of the last one there’s the danger it will throw you off. I often forget to use this rule (many’s the time I’ll still be berating myself at 11:06am) so I’m writing it here as a gift to you and a reminder to myself.

HALT(S)
This comes from comedian Felicity Ward (via Georgie Carrol - on the ComCom podcast) who uses the acronym HALTS. It’s based on a version without the S, used by Alcoholics Anonymous, in which the letters stands for Hungry Angry Lonely Tired. In the AA version it’s used as a tool to notice and address your needs early on. In other words, if you’re feeling “Lonely” the advice is to try to find a way to connect with people, if you’re feeling “Angry” it’s good to find a healthy way to feel/express that anger etc.

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In a performance context you can use it to check in with yourself as to whether you are feeling any of these things throughout the day before the show and, if you are, to try to address those needs. Felicity Ward adds an “S” for “Serious” which I like. Obviously you can bring your serious self to the stage (this in itself could be funny) but in this context I think she means not to take yourself too seriously, and to make sure you’re allowing yourself to be playful. This is not to be confused with toxic positivity, or forcing yourself to seem “fun” - you definitely don’t need to pretend to be upbeat when you go on stage - that would be awful. Rather, it’s about checking in on yourself and making sure you’re in a playful place. I found the HALTS acronym helpful. There was definitely one night during Mischief Movie Night in which I forgot to check my H for “Hunger” beforehand, and became increasingly confused as the plot went on. My blood sugar dipped, along with my concept of reality…although to be honest that’s just a typical Mischief Movie Night storyline. Regardless, the moral of the story is: carry a banana with you at all times.

Practise delight in others.
This is more relevant to improv than stand up, but when I was having a tough time inside my brain, my friend (the exceptional improviser Lauren Shearing) reminded me of one of my favourite quotes : “If we treat each other as if we are geniuses, poets and artists, we have a better chance of becoming that on stage.” (Del Close). I consciously thought about this before a show one night, and it helped massively. If you go into a scene loving everyone’s offers and ideas, it puts you in a joyful state of mind. You want to follow the fun and stop judging what is happening around you. It keeps you in the moment. I highly recommend this for improvisers. When you love what others are doing on stage, the next step, to try to make other people look brilliant by building on their ideas, feels very natural indeed.

I hope you had a good summer, whether you were at the Edinburgh Fringe, doing shows in London, or not doing shows and just being a normal, fully functioning human being. As it’s the comedian’s new year, my new year’s resolution is to be a bit more consistent and to post these Substacks fortnightly. Do spread the word if you enjoy them. I will also be doing some more work in progress shows of my solo show soon and I’d love you to be there. Stay tuned.

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Murder for Dummies
Casual Violence are a sketch group who have made their own 6 episode horror-comedy whodunnit. It’s so good! It’s very funny and gorgeously shot. I pop up in it extremely briefly, surrounded by a cast of excellent people. Do subscribe to their YouTube channel and look out for the release date on October 10th.

Richer Than God: The Tony Milch Story
The Awkward Silence are also a sketch group who have made their own 6 part mockumentary. It’s witty and silly and funny and stars the Awkward Silence playing the men and Ruth Bratt and I playing ALL the women. It’s out already, so you can watch it now!

I have huge respect for people who make their own work (It takes ages! It requires so much will power! The admin is never ending! AND it takes talent!) so any watches/likes/shares/general spreading the word for either of these great projects would be really appreciated by them and me.

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I’ve exchanged so many voice-notes with friends about how quiet it is, that I could release a true crime podcast entitled “The case of the vanishing industry”. I genuinely started thinking about other things I could retrain as, but the only thing I would want to do is become some sort of therapist and there’s way too much ridiculous stuff of me online to make that a viable option! Hard to create a sense of gravitas when someone has seen you crawl across the floor as a hedgehog. Also there is this video (below).
And anyway, I’ve spent way too many years trying to get good, and making things that I’m really proud of, just to throw it all away.

Thankfully my work-drought was broken this month when I did an audio drama. I realise how fortunate I am to have any sort of work, so needless to say I felt very grateful and I never take stuff like that for granted. I had a really nice few days recording numerous episodes and spending time with the other actors in-between scenes. Several lovely members of the cast were full of incredible showbiz anecdotes featuring Anthony Head, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and the like. It was glorious. When the job finished I felt an overwhelming desire to re-watch Toast of London…

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Doing Showstopper! this month was a tonic as well. Not for the first time, I counted my blessings for getting into improv, which I think/hope is fairly bulletproof as an art form, because it’s self sufficient and comparatively cheap to make. Also, unlike with TV and mainstream theatre, “names” can’t replace improvisers, so our jobs are safe. Thankfully Cheryl Cole can’t suddenly jump in and improvise a song in the style of Hadestown. Although, maybe I’m doing her a disservice. It would certainly be interesting to witness. Anyway, getting back to the performance on Monday, it’s rare that the company of Showstopper do a show that we’re all happy with, but on this occasion we were, and that, my friend, is a flipping miracle! It felt fun, cohesive, and as if we were all on the same page story-wise. As I often say, improvising story is HARD. Sometimes we’ll finish a performance and, regardless of the audience reaction, some of us will feel worried that our contribution wasn’t good enough, but on this occasion the standing ovation felt earned.

Meanwhile, Lucy Trodd and I have recorded a theme tune for our project, which feels exciting! It’s been hard juggling everything, doing rewrites alongside doing as much teaching as we can to pay the bills. Imagine what it’s like for people who can just write the thing they’ve been commissioned to write. What a world! I see people on Twitter saying they have had to take on non-theatre work or non-writing work recently to supplement their commissions, and while it would be nice if this wasn’t the case, there’s certainly no shame in it. I don’t know many people who can exist on just the arts alone at the moment, unless they are blessed with a private income or a partner who has a lucrative “normal” job. Or unless they are auteurs who have managed to find their own niche and their own fan base to match. I have a lot of admiration for those people and hope to find a way to do that myself one day. In the meantime I’m grateful I can teach workshops alongside creating stuff (it’s enjoyable and satisfying work) but it would be nice to have a bit more balance sometimes. It can be a bit stressful, juggling everything.

Speaking of workshops, I taught a young actress earlier this year who was worried and sad about how little work there was out there. I felt for her. It was difficult to think of something comforting to say because the reality is, things probably haven’t been this bad since 2020. But there are a few thoughts which I hope might be a comfort.

1. Things can change at any moment. This is true and hard to remember. I felt like I’d never work again, and was literally googling “how many years does it take to train to be a counsellor?” and then the next week I was recording an audio drama. It was only a short contract, but nonetheless it gave me hope, connections and (crucially) a financial boost.

2. We’re very close to getting a new government and it’s possible that they will invest in the arts a bit more. They certainly can’t be any worse than this lot.

3. There are other (nicer?) things in life that aren’t work, and also work doesn’t have to define you. It’s a bit rich me saying that, because it definitely defines me, but I always feel better when I remember to do real life things that are not connected with work. Meet up with a friend, see your family, join a pilates class in which the teacher brings her dog along (*!), pretend it’s the 90’s and ring your best mate for a catch up, dance in the kitchen, or simply go outside and enjoy the icy cold wind and rain on your face. Or even the - no? - Could it be - ? Sunshine, is that you????!

   
   If you’re struggling I am sending solidarity to you, along with the hope that finally the never-ending metaphorical (and literal) winter is ending, and that there are brighter days ahead.
   

   Alexa play: “Here Comes The Sun”.

News

I’ll be performing at The Comedy Store tonight. It’s only the second time I’ve ever performed there in my life, so it still feels like a big deal to me, and an honour to be asked. Tickets here if you fancy a laugh.

I’m doing another WIP of my solo show at The Pen Theatre on 25th July at 7.00pm. More details and tickets here. I’m sharing the night with the excellent physical comic & improviser David Hoskin.

*This actually happened! I now live for my pilates classes, just for the chance to have a dog lean against me, while I’m flailing on my back, mid crab-pose.

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I sometimes find it tricky explaining what I do. Capitalism likes to categorise people, so that they can become products with clear, easy to understand branding. So when you say you do more than one thing, it can be confusing. When I was in my 20’s and early 30’s I mostly did conventional acting work, only occasionally branching out into sketch/puppetry - such a generalist! Gradually however, a combination of feeling driven to make comedy, and having fewer acting opportunities, made me feel less like an actor, and more like a comedian. I know people in similar boats who aren’t happy about this, but personally I’ve found it exciting to commit to comedy. The thing that has always bored me about the acting industry is that (voice-acting aside) you generally have to “look like the character”. This means, regardless of ability/tenacity/experience, most actors will only ever be allowed to play certain roles. YAWN. In comedy however, a person simply looks however they happen to look. Also, in comedy you don’t have to wait for casting directors to consider you, you can just make stuff yourself. “I mostly see myself as a comedian now, I rarely think of myself as an actor anymore,” I told my novelist/actor friend recently with a big contented smile on my face.

So it was a surprise this month when I was asked to do an R&D, as an actor, for a new theatre show. An R&D is a catch-all term for a research and development period in which a new show is developed. Sometimes this entails devising/playing around with ideas, and sometimes it is more like a mini rehearsal process with a script and/or musical score, culminating in a sharing at the end. The R&D I took part in was the latter. It was for a new musical, and upon hearing the incredible voices of the other women in the cast, I felt lucky to be in the room. The songs we learnt were gutsy and brilliant and stayed in my head for weeks afterwards. The experience reminded me of what I’ve always loved about acting: being in a room with other performers and everyone working really hard, all playing their part, big or small, to make one excellent thing. It’s what kept me going from acting job to acting job with zero strategy or game plan when I was younger: I just loved being in a rehearsal room. In this particular R&D, the rehearsal room in question was exclusively made up of women. “I can’t believe it! Everyone is a woman!!!” I exclaimed, cartoon hearts popping out of my eyeballs. No one else seemed fazed. It made me realise that a lot of the rehearsal rooms I’ve been in throughout my career, have been male-led. Nothing intrinsically wrong with that I suppose, but it was certainly refreshing to experience the opposite. Everyone was a woman, not just the director, writers and composers, but also the musical director, the sound engineer, the producers and the stage manager, roles which are commonly carried out by men. It was a life-affirming room to be in. I felt supported & encouraged throughout, which enabled me to learn the songs more quickly than I’d thought I was capable of. I left with my voice wrecked from overenthusiastic singing, but my heart full.

Straight after the R&D I went to Wales to perform my solo comedy show at Mach Fest in Machynlleth. This was a bit of an honour. Mach Fest is beloved by comedians, and it didn’t disappoint. The organisers and volunteers were friendly, helpful and proactive. I ordered a screen to change behind, and when it didn’t turn up at the venue in time, they built me one out of stuff that was around. How excellent is that? Heroes. All of the annoying things about Edfringe (flyer-ing, performers being exploited by venues, the festival lasting for an entire month, paying hundreds of pounds for a few sentences in the Edfringe brochure, self hatred, trench foot etc) don’t exist at Mach. Reviews aren’t allowed either, so the atmosphere is lighter and less competitive than at some arts festivals. Comedians can be as weird as they want without fear of someone misunderstanding them in print.

I had tech help for my show, which was hugely appreciated, but nevertheless the lead up to Mach was a relatively lonely endeavour. I guess this is the problem with having always had one foot in acting, one in comedy, and my hand (?) in improv. Doing multiple things has meant that I’m not really part of a comedy gang yet. Despite this, the festival, the town of Machynlleth, and the show itself were all hugely enjoyable. The audience seemed very happy to get involved with the interaction, and instantly understood the weird, meta bits. It was bliss! I also managed to film it, admittedly from a side angle and propped up on some drink cans* but hey, it’s a start, right?

While writing this Substack, I came across an interview in the Guardian with the genre defying Miranda July, and a link to an Onion piece entitled Miranda July Called Before Congress To Explain Exactly What Her Whole Thing Is. This sentence in particular struck a chord: “they remained concerned as to whether July's disparate, largely ephemeral activities could be said to amount to a cohesive body of work or a sustainable career.” It’s a very funny piece and it got me thinking, if you had to explain your whole deal to Congress what would you say, but also does it matter if you can’t explain it? Personally I don’t mind how other people define me, it’s quite fun. Someone described me as a singer the other day which was unexpected (!) and there are always going to be certain types of promotion which necessitate specific definitions. For example, if I was performing in an improv show, which was part of an improv night, taking place at an improv theatre, it would be weird to call myself “a comedy writer” in the promo.

To my mind, all the different strands feed into each other. Improvising helps me be a better writer, being an actor helps me be a better improviser, and improvising helps me be more present with the audience as a comedian. It’s all interlinked and all comes from the same place. The only problem is, there’s no box you can tick to say that.

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You can see me being an actor-singer-comedian-improviser-instantwriter in Showstopper! The Improvised Musical, at The Cambridge Theatre, in the West End, on June 10th and July 1st.

You can see me being a charactercomedian-comedywriter-actor-impressionist-improviser-ventriloquist in Comedy Double Bill at The Pen Theatre with the excellent David Hoskin, on July 25th.

*big thanks again to Tom, and to the amazing volunteers for improvising me a makeshift tripod out of carbonated water cans.

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Whatever the reason, my inner critic has been LOUD, unhelpful and downright mean at times, during and after shows. So it was a tonic to perform These Folk in Bristol recently and to feel good about it before, during, and after the performance. These Folk is an improvised folk musical performed by myself and Justin Brett and accompanied by brilliant musicians. We don’t do it as often as we’d like, but Justin and I have worked together for years so we fit into each other’s grooves pretty easily. In a These Folk show prior to this one, I’d held on a bit too tightly to the narrative and forgot to have fun as a result. This time around I reminded myself to have fun, and hey presto it was way better and more enjoyable. We were joined by Dan Atfield on guitar for the first time and it was a treat to play with him. Dan is mega experienced (having played for Abandoman, Nina Conti and many others) and the three of us gelled well musically and (importantly!) in the van on the way home too. I love working with improv musicians and always feel grateful for being able to collaborate with artists in this very specific way to create live music together.

Bristol Improv Theatre, or BIT as it is known is a nice size and the audience are very close to the playing space so it feels intimate. There’s nothing worse than those venues where the gap between audience and stage is so big that there’s a laughter time-delay. No such problem here where the laughter and aahs could be heard immediately. The audience were fun and the story that unfolded wasn’t too confusing, so we were able to have fun exploring songs, characters and deepening relationships without having to make sense of complicated plot threads. Simplicity is usually my preference in narrative shows, but this is not the preferred choice for all improvisers. Some people love convoluted, clever plots. Different strokes for different folks I guess. Or rather, different plot threads for different improv heads…

These Folk aside it’s been a disorientating spring, so in an attempt to get my improv confidence back for good I’ve come up with some reminders for myself. If you are an improviser having a crisis of confidence I hope that they might help you. Or maybe you’ll even have some to add.

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How to get your improv mojo back

Remember to have fun.
There’s literally no point in doing it otherwise because, as we know, no one goes into improv for the money. I reminded myself to have fun before my show at BIT and coincidentally my pal Pippa Evans reminded me of this too when we were doing Showstopper! The Improvised Musical for two nights at Leicester Curve Theatre. On the first night I was tasked with singing an explanation to resolve a complicated plot in the style of the musical “Kinky Boots”. This was a verrrry hard thing to do successfully, so inevitably I felt like a loser while doing it. But next time I’m in this kind of predicament I’m going to try and enjoy the sensation of crashing and burning! In other words, “Enjoy things even when you’re screwing up.” (Keith Johnson)

Be average, be obvious.
This is something I try to convey to beginner improv students. It may sound counterintuitive at first but the idea is that if you are too busy trying to find the perfect thing to say you’re not being present. In contrast if you simply say what’s obvious to you, (ie your first thought), you’ll be in a sense of flow and will able to build on the last idea more easily. I also remind students that everyone’s ‘obvious’ is different, because each of us is unique. Therefore simply because it is a thought belonging to you, it’ll be interesting to other people.

Be a tree.
If you’re feeling worried and self critical just get involved by supporting the scene in the background. It gets you out of your head, and makes the scene better, so everyone wins. Of course there isn’t this option in every show, but if it’s an improvised narrative then there probably will be numerous opportunities for this. During the 50 hour London Improvathon it was inspiring to watch many of my fellow improvisers doing just that. A particular master of this approach was improviser and comedian John Oakes who supported each and every scene with generous and swift background work, as well as playing his main character brilliantly. Next time I’m feeling self critical on stage mid-show I’m going to try to channel this.

Let it go.
I find this SO HARD. After my first gig at The Comedy Store I came off stage knowing that my lyrics in a song I improvised could have been better if I hadn’t been distracted by needing to cough. What a boring thought to have in my head!! I found it impossible not to beat myself up about this afterwards and not to replay all the things I could have sung. But there is literally no point. At some stage you just have to let it go. And now I absolutely have…..although if I’d just sung a verse before going back into the chorus I might have had time to clear my throat and - oh shut the f*** up brain!

To Film or not to Film

Improv aside, I’m continuing to work on my solo show. I tried out a new character, Liz Truss (you may have heard of her), at a comedy night last month. I also became her for a couple of hours in the London 50-hour Improvathon during which time she was given a lesson on public speaking by Ian McKellen, Jonathan Price and Laurence Olivier. I don’t think there’s any record (photographic or otherwise) of this happening, so I guess you literally had to be there.

Speaking of which, I’ve been thinking about recording gigs lately as it’s become a big part of being a comedian. It’s something I am trying to adjust to as currently I’m not very good at recording everything I do. Documenting my life is not in my (old) bones in the way that it is for members of Gen Z. I love the creative challenge of making comedy videos from scratch, but I don’t like recording myself doing live gigs as I find setting up a tripod at a gig where I’m only doing 5 minutes a bit stressful. Making sure I’ve got enough space on my phone and trying not to get in other people’s way is all just a bit of a faff. However not filming what I do can be disadvantageous. My favourite These Folk show is now lost in the ether, and the world will never know what great advice Jonathan Price gave Liz Truss, or how brilliant improviser Andrew Gentilli’s impression of him was... Clearly filming everything is something I need to get into the habit of doing, so I am going to try my best to adapt from hereon in. Stay tuned for badly filmed live clips! In the meantime here’s how I imagine Charlie Chaplin would have coped if he’d had to do all the stuff comedians have to do to provide online content nowadays.

Enjoy!

*waves silently at camera*

News
I’m doing my next WIP (work in progress) on Thursday 25th April at Hoopla where I’ll be sharing a double bill with Conor Jatter. Conor is a great improviser, clown and member of the RH Experience. I’m excited to see what material he’s cooking up and we would love it if you could come along.

Tickets for Hoopla WIP

Workshops
I’m looking to teach some more of my own improv workshops soon, so if you’re reading this and would like me to keep you informed of what I have coming up then do drop me a message!

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2024 started with a bang (and jazz hands), with myself and Musical Director Duncan Walsh Atkins teaching a Showstopper intensive. The intensive (full of brave and brilliant souls from all over the world) was indeed intense. At the end of each day there was no space in my brain to write or think, full as it was with improvised choruses playing around my mind on an everlasting loop. Since then I’ve been teaching multiple improv courses all over the place. To be totally honest, doing so much improv teaching can be tiring. While it is a privilege it is also a challenge to teach people to be comfortable with uncertainty. It takes a lot of energy to (try to) create a space where people feel safe enough to take risks.

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In other news, I’ve been working on my solo show and getting a lot of joy from the process. Even at a quiet gig I come away feeling excited and curious about what I can do better next time. I love the freedom and independence of gigging. Getting a train back to London late at night, I feel like I’m coming home from an adventure, which I am in a way. Despite development of the show going well however, I’ve decided not to take it to Edinburgh this year. I haven’t heard back from the venues I’ve applied to and am unlikely to do so. If I ever get an offer from The Pleasance for my solo show (I’ve applied to The Pleasance for YEARS and perform there in The Pleasance Grand each year) I’ll eat my hat/wig.

I’m a very impatient person. This is why I like improv and solo comedy, because you can get on with it without waiting for boring gatekeepers to give you permission. So the thought of waiting another year to take my show to Edinburgh is frustrating. On the other hand, doing a solo show at the fringe is such a huge endeavour that it’s probably better to wait until all the circumstances are right, rather than going up with the wrong time slot or with a venue that doesn’t quite fit what I need. Also, I feel like there must be another way for one’s work to be seen by audiences and industry, aside from the Edinburgh Fringe. I haven’t figured out what it is yet but there’s got to be another option right? Right?! Riiiiiiight?

Anyway. The initial break from putting stuff out into the world gave me a renewed energy to make videos again (like this one of Liz Truss doing improv) and it’s been good to prioritise doing normal, real-life things too. I’m hoping to do more of the latter this year. When your job is also your passion it’s hard to find time for hobbies/interests/fun, but this year I’m determined to do more things which are non-work related. I’ve filled my Google calendar with colour coded dots. I have red for Showstopper shows, blue for improv teaching, yellow for writing sessions, purple for comedy gigs and green for non-work, ie seeing friends, family, driving lessons (gulp). I’ve already found this really helpful. Looking at the dots over the month it’s possible to see where I’m putting my energy and what I’m investing the most time in. My aim is to add more green dots as the year goes on…

Speaking of the purple dots (comedy gigs), it can be a slog getting these booked in. Being a character comedian is tedious at times: all the self promotion and scavenging for suitable gigs who will have you. It certainly keeps you humble. It doesn’t matter that I have performed improv to thousands of happy punters, I’m not widely known as a character act, which means it sometimes take a bit of convincing to get 5 minutes of unpaid stage time. This is fair enough, and luckily I have had years of rejections and lowering my expectations to equip me to deal with this. But also: yawn. On the plus side, I have done some great gigs, and am looking forward to some more this spring, especially ACMS in March, and my first try-out slot at Comedy 4 Kids in April.

Even more excitingly I’m doing Mach Fest in May! I’ve always wanted to do this festival so am over the moon to go there with a work in progress of my new show. The audiences there are invariably comedy savvy which is a nice prospect, and I’m excited to see some other shows while I’m up there too. If you’re going why not book a ticket to my show? I can guarantee you that it’s the only solo show featuring a character who has swallowed a small girl in a well.

For my next few WIP’s I’m going to keep mixing it up by substituting one or two characters I’ve already tried, for one or two new ones. My director Ben Target described this as “turning the soil.” I like this way of looking at things. The aim is to keep generating new material, discovering new characters and digging for little moments of gold.

Meanwhile the yellow (writing) dots on my calendar are filling up. Lucy Trodd and I are busy working on a project which I’m looking forward to telling you about. The seeds we’ve planted are finally starting to grow and we’re excited for the harvest.

New season, new soil. Let’s get our feet in it.

Come and see me at Mach Fest

News

This weekend The London 50-hour Improvathon is taking place at Wilton’s Music Hall. I’ll be improvising through the night, from 9pm Saturday - 7am Sunday. There will be an array of talented improvisers, comedians, actors from far and wide…and Liz Truss may also make an appearance. See you there night owls!

Anyway, it went well (phone crashing from tripod to the ground mid-show not withstanding) and I enjoyed trying out the new structure and the numerous edits.
I thought I’d share a few things that helped me this time around, which I hope might be useful/interesting to others.

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Last minute new ideas

There were two characters which I added only the day before (one was written from scratch and the other was adapted from one of my videos), and they were both well received, so that was a fun discovery! Also I really enjoyed doing them. This served as a reminder that it’s often worth trying last minute ideas out, if there is time in the set to do so. Mine were both well under 5 minutes so it wasn’t high risk. I’ll definitely do this again.

Costume changes

Much as the little things (eg a falling phone) can throw you off, the little things can really help as well. The star of the show for me was a mirror with an LED light in it, which I bought the day before the performance. If you are a character comedian reading this and you need to get changed behind a screen, in the dark, mid-show, this is an absolute godsend. In years gone by I’ve been in theatre productions that employed Dressers (oh the luxury!) who were skilled at changing actors from one costume to another, often in small spaces, in record time. Dressing is a choreographed affair and requires the person doing it to remain speedy yet unflustered throughout. In the DIY world of comedy there are no such luxuries, so any little thing to make quick-changes easier/quicker really helps. Hooray for this mirror then: star of backstage! Whether or not to use costumes is an interesting quandary for character performers. One year I did a solo show in which none of my characters wore costumes. By that I don’t mean I was naked (I’ve seen naked comedy and really wish I hadn’t), I just mean that I wore one outfit throughout. Sometimes I regret not making that choice this time too, purely for the freedom and lack of faff it affords. But on the other hand, once you’ve been to a rubber and foam shop and made a giant costume, you’ve committed, and I do love a visual gag. I might go back to a costume-less show again one day though. It would certainly be nice to have less baggage…

Running order

Another thing that helped me in this WIP was writing a running order of my characters. When I was in a band we used to write out a set list of the songs we’d be performing on bits of A4 paper, and put them on the stage in a couple of different places, so I decided to do that in my solo show too. Some acts (especially stand ups) have all their notes/scripts on with them during a work in progress, but I wanted to rely mostly on memory, so this was a useful middle ground. It was reassuring to have the running order on stage (as well as backstage) to glance at occasionally, to ensure that I was changing into the right character.

Visible clocks

I was relieved that there was a digital clock at the back of the room that I could see. I get a bit obsessed with timings in comedy. Knowing the time is essential for doing improvisation too, especially narrative improv. In a fully improvised play/musical you need to know how long you have left, in order to bring stuff back/wrap things up, or to know when it might be too late to add another new character. The same can be true for a show like this. There was one character who I wasn’t going to do if it was taking too long. She was a maybe! Luckily the editing I’d done since my last WIP meant there was time for her, so she got bumped up to a definite, but I only made the decision in the moment, thanks to the clock. All hail massive clocks! There’s nothing worse than running over your allotted time. On Monday I went over a 10 minute slot by one minute 30 seconds, and still feel haunted by that today. In my experience, being able to see the time helps you feel more in control, and anything that helps you feel in control during a chaotic, work in progress solo show, can only be a good thing.

There’s still a way to go with my show, and I need to try out more characters/ideas over the next little while, but I’m very grateful to the audience that came along and am excited about the direction in which it’s heading.

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News

Hoopla Teacher’s Show
I’m performing in this improv show on Saturday. There are loads of us and it should be a good laugh, if only to see whether we all fit onto the stage!

Showstopper Christmas Kid’s Show
We’re doing a flurry of improvised kid’s shows this December. If you have children in your life bring them along! I love doing this show. It’s anarchic, fun, and the suggestions we get are amazing. I’m doing these specific dates - 9th & 10th Dec: Woolwich Works, 21st & 23rd Dec: The Other Palace.