It was one of those nights. A good night. The tail end of another improv festival. Everyone had piled into the afterparty venue and started getting good and drunk. Somewhere to my right someone had started a dancing circle. People swaying to their own internal beat, not making eye contact. THAT sort of night.

Everywhere I looked were little huddles of people talking about improv. Deconstructing the shows we had just seen. I was talking to a friend, belly up to the bar. We were leaning in to hear each other. And I was slightly regretting the dark rum I’d added to my coke. So when she asked me the question out of nowhere, I answered honestly and without thinking.

What’s your strength as an improviser? What are you really good at?

I told her I was proud of my lightness of touch. That I could perform grounded, dramatic scenes without them feeling stultifying or maudlin. That I could find humour in moments of high drama and further, could add pathos and depth to broad comic scenes. As I said it, I surprised myself. I’d never articulated that thought in that particular way before.

It spoke to the improv I’m always reaching for (and despite my drunken confidence, often fall woefully short of) - that perfect synthesis of depth and playfulness that sends goosebumps racing across my skin. That feeling that made me fall in love with improv in the first place.

If you look at the classes I regularly teach in London, and on the festival circuit, they’re all variations on that same theme - Emotional Connection, Truth in Comedy, Relational Improv, Improvised Theatre. I want to see improvisers bringing depth and commitment to their scenes.

But I don’t just want that. I want humour and a sense of play too. Despite my preferences, I find it as hard to sit through 45 minutes of DRAMATIC IMPROV (ALL-CAPS) as the next person. If I had to choose between watching crazy-town, wack-a-doodle, gags-aplenty improv and a troupe that’s determined to play out the eviscerating depths of life’s vicissitudes in real time, I’d plump for the former every time.

Every time.

But what I really want to see is neither of those extremes. I want characters who feel like human beings, sure, who have depth and insight and contain multitudes - who aren’t just a vector for a punchline. But, and here’s the kicker, I do want those characters to be funny. Because humans are funny. Friends make each other laugh all the time. I want that meringue-fragile confection of profundity and profanity - joyful people who sometimes struggle, a couple on the verge of breaking up who still make each other laugh - I want a pinch of salt in my scene work to bring out the sweetness.

Does that make sense? It feels like a revelation to me.

But it could just be the dark rum talking.

<aside> 💡 Hey, my name’s Chris Mead. I write an article about improv almost every week. You can get the latest in your inbox by subscribing to my newsletter. Or check out the archive.

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