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This week, I’m back to answering questions from fellow improvisers.

Jim asks: Would you rather have the legs of an ostrich or the snout of a crocodile?

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So, the first thing to say is that Jim isn’t an improviser. He’s a normal. And he’s asked this question that is entirely uninterested in improv because he thinks he’s funny.

But I’m going to answer it anyway and make it about improv so TAKE THAT, JIM!

Because I am a very bad character improviser.

I just don’t have that skill set. So many of my fellow players are incredible mimics. They have an ear for accents. They have the ability to maintain a radically different persona from themselves.

That’s just not me. I tend to play quite close to myself.

For a while, I wondered if this would exclude me from ever being a particularly successful performer. We all envy the things we can’t do naturally (and the flip side is also true, we discount any skill that comes easily to us - but that’s another essay).

What I’ve come to discover is that you only have to make subtle changes in order to appear pretty different on stage. And it’s not about accents. Accents are specific, they are musical really - it’s all about tone, tempo, intonation - working in unity. You either have that knack or you don’t.

It’s not even all about voice, that’s just one of the things we can change.

Jill Bernard has this great breakdown of character work - VAP:

Voice Attitude Posture

Voice is what comes out of your mouth - and there are things you can change pretty easily, even if you are a vocal chump like me. You can pitch your voice up or down. You can talk faster or slower. You can change your vocabulary. There’s also a texture to your voice - for instance, smooth or gravelly - that’s pretty easy to alter.

Attitude is your emotional state. We all have a default setting. Some people are just naturally warm, inquisitive, thoughtful, aggressive or what have you. It’s actually relatively easy to charge yourself up like a battery with a different attitudinal outlook. It makes all the difference in the world, if your default is happy and smiley to suddenly become tense and scowling.

Posture is how you hold yourself. It’s how you place your feet when you walk. Whether you make eye contact with people as they go past. If you try to bend your spine in a different way, if you hold your coffee cup awkwardly or chew your lip as you think - you’ll feel like a different person.

And the cool thing about these three theatrical levers, is that if you pull one, the other two reorient for free. In sympathy. Try it now, roll your shoulders forward, squeeze your arms into your sides. Now try speaking - it comes out differently as air is forced unnaturally through your constricted vocal cords. Now think, how do I feel? I’m willing to bet this character you’re becoming is in a different emotional space than you were 10 seconds ago.

Change one thing and benefit from variations across the VAP trifecta.

So what has all of this got to do with Jim’s question? (and well done for making it this far without an answer to that)

It’s because sometimes the easiest way to recalibrate VAP differentials all at once is to think of yourself as an animal. Not an actual animal, still a human, but with the animating presence of another species.

Thinking yourself into these mindsets can help you make instant choices as to voice, attitude and posture. Walk tentatively across the stage with the legs of an ostrich, speak your snide remarks through a crocodile’s snout. It allows you to make a bunch of choices instantly and BONUS it also allows you to re-inhabit those characters later on in the show, should you require them to reappear.