I t began on October 27, 1985. The Comedy Store had never before hosted a show in which people just made things up — stories, sketches and songs. Now it is the longest-running comedy show in the West End of London. Yet you have probably never heard of it. We have not won any awards, apart from the Golden Whisk, created by Mo Mowlam, who became a fan after happening upon us one Sunday night. She felt we deserved some accolade to recognise our fifteenth anniversary, so she spray-painted a kitchen implement (that being the object most commonly suggested by our audiences) and glued it to a plate purloined from the House of Commons.
Where are the team from that first night? Kit Hollerbach is a schoolteacher. Dave Cohen is a successful TV writer. Mike Myers makes movies. And I’m still there, with Josie Lawrence, Paul Merton, Lee Simpson, Andy Smart, Jim Sweeney and Richard Vranch — aka the Comedy Store Players. Twice a week, without a script, we entertain an audience of 400 using their suggestions and playing the improvisational games taught to us by Hollerbach and Myers.
Actors rely on a script and stand-up comics rely on gags. But improvisers rely on each other and the audience. We are the chicken nuggets of showbiz, wafting a bad smell around the fillet steak of stand-up and the haute cuisine of theatre.
What makes a good improviser? Well, laziness for a start. Actors and comics agonise over their lines, but we just turn up, chat in the dressing-room, do the show and have a drink. Form and content are inseparable. The joke is that you do not know what you or another player will say next. If what emerges were to be written down it would be like describing a great party by marking out a floorplan of the furniture. Context is all. Maybe we’re not chicken nuggets — more like an impromptu picnic with double espresso.
What’s our trick? We embrace fully whatever our fellow players come up with. We make something work by assuming that it will work. It’s not about quick thinking. No, “thinking” would involve stepping back, evaluating the idea, rationalising its chances of working. We short-circuit that process. Our motto is, “Yes, and . . .” rather than, “Yes, but . . .”
Our group is the only one in the world with substantially the same personnel for nearly two decades. We are failing dismally in our succession planning, but why hand things over when we are having such a good time? We do invite guest performers to fill in when a player is off doing something else. How do we select guests? By a rigorous system of caprice tempered by favouritism. What about our audience? All ages, nationalities and occupations are represented. An ad man’s dream? No, a nightmare, for there is no demographic. These people, apparently, have nothing in common. We have no idea how they find out about us.
In the recent BBC documentary about 25 years of the Comedy Store, coverage of the players merited a mere two minutes, despite the best efforts of the presenter and director Paul Merton and that we fill the place twice a week. It is obvious why — it doesn’t make good TV. It is the ultimate “you-had-to-be-there” form. Whose Line is it Anyway? succeeded where other improv projects had failed because it put Clive Anderson right in there, his random interventions serving to remind the TV audience that it was done on the hoof.
We have been approached by TV people, but our collective shrug of incredulity has soon sent them packing. Perhaps this is the secret of our longevity. We are basically a bunch of mates who turn up and make each other laugh OK, it has paid our mortgages down the years, and we did two national tours in the 1990s — but they nearly finished us off.
I used to think that I had wasted my time doing throwaway comedy instead of sitting writing something more permanent. Then it hit me — I really enjoy it. Instead of feeling guilty, I should be doing more of it! So now I earn my living going into organisations, teaching improvisation as a leadership skill. I even did a show at a management consultants’ conference, sharing the stage with a handful of raw recruits. I had half an hour to teach them the basics. I told them that if they were still breathing when they got on stage, that was 99 per cent of the battle. They stormed. A professional comic next on the bill said: “Just shows how easy it is.” I couldn’t disagree.
One night at the Store a disgruntled punter left after ten minutes with the sharp riposte: “You’re just saying things and people are laughing.” True. Yet something more is happening. Our show is about celebrating and sharing vulnerability, collectively glorying in the possibilities that can evolve when you disable your normal editing facility. And it’s funny.
The Comedy Store Players perform every Sunday and Wednesday at the Comedy Store, London SW1 (www.comedystoreplayers.com 0207-839 6642)
The jokers on the Players
“I’m surprised by how casual they are before a show. There is no pacing around or anxious muttering, no false bonhomie or competitive tension. It’s as though they actually don’t care. Of course, they do. It’s just that the best frame of mind in which to improvise is a kind of heightened relaxation.”
ARTHUR SMITH
“Quite simply, they are the best and most consistent improv group in the known world.”
GREG PROOPS
“In stand-up, you're on your own, so it's nice to have a bit of company and a real laugh. The Players are all so bloody good you can trust them to get you out of a hole if you f*** up.”
PHILL JUPITUS
“Sometimes you have to argue with TV people over what is funny: improvising with the Players you find out instantly.”
PAUL MERTON
“They complement one another beautifully, and lack the isolating ambitions of comedy groups in America. They are masters of other talents, always busy, yet the Store is their unifying playground..”
MIKE McSHANE
“It was as if I came from another planet with some Beatles tunes nobody knew. I showed them how to do it. But before long they were writing their own tunes that were better than the Beatles. I thought: ‘Oh dear, they’re very good.’”
MIKE MYERS
“No matter what job I’ve been working on, when I walk into the dressing room I feel as though I’m home. We adore each other, sometimes we infuriate each other, but we always make each other laugh.”
JOSIE LAWRENCE
“Over the past few years the Comedy Store Players have created the most authentic performances at the Globe with their spontaneous, topical and surreal improv. Their ability to improvise Shakespeare’s plays from scratch has always been a highlight.”
MARK RYLANCE
