A Way Out West Journey
How 72 hours of performance have help mould my abilities.
So, if you read my last blog, you’ll have reacted in one of two ways. You either enjoyed a trip down memory lane or you had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. Judging by the lack of claps the post got, most of you were in the latter camp. I do not begrudge this as the audience that understood every reference would be niche to say the least. The blog was a way for me to wrap up one of the most intensive roles I have ever played.
A few years ago, a charity show was announced. It was to be a 24 hour long improvised show. The Southend Improvathon was founded by Ali James, a West End musical theatre performer, comedian and improviser extraordinaire. Inspired by the Canadian troupe Die-Nasty, an episodic weekly improvised soap opera, plus other forms of improvathons previously performed, Ali brought the format to the Trinity Football Club in October 2018 with the title Murder at the Hollywood Hotel. The show was to be performed in 2 hour long blocks — 1h45m for the show 15 min break, starting at 7pm on the Friday till 7pm on the Saturday. Ali and the team provided an amazing set, music, lighting and she directed the show, asking for certain characters to perform a scene and give motivations as it went along.
The cast was to be made up of many of the local scene’s best improvisers, plus a few guests from further afields. I was still finding my feet as an improviser in the local area, so I was surprised to be invited to perform in the show. Despite my performance experience, doing long-form improv was a daunting prospect. I was asked for perform for 8 hours, which later extended to the final 10. Performers in these shows are not required to do the full show if need be. Newer faces appeared throughout the 24 hours to inject new energy into the story.
The performer’s role in planning the show was relatively simple: come up with your character’s name and their reason for being in the setting. But me being me, I couldn’t do just that. Not only did I think of the name Captain Henry “Hank” Hackenschmidt (which quite rightly was shortened by show time), not only his reason for being at the hotel was as part of his quest for personal redemption, but I had to construct a whole back story about his captaining of a passenger ship that sank after he had abandoned the crew. While this established a few motifs for the rest of the show (a character’s inner thoughts being portrayed by sock puppets), I was so esconsed in this back story that I found it hard to find any relationships with other characters in the story. This was despite the efforts of our director and a character brought in especially for my story (played by the awesome Lisa Lynn). I was finding it so hard that I forgot the basic principle of improv: Yes, and… I was unwilling to move my character forward and essentially got lost in the shuffle in a company of extremely funny and confident performers. I felt I had completely let everyone down, including myself.
Roll on 12 months and we come to the second Southend Improvathon: Into the Unknown. Set aboard a spaceship passenger flight, the sci-fi setting saw the cast bring some incredible costumes, make up and characters. I was again asked to perform for 8 hours, this time during the middle section (3am — 11am) Even more daunting this time around was that I was doing this section between two shows I was doing for Comedy Dinner Show before and after (don’t worry, I didn’t drive for the second one!).
I was determined to make sure I didn’t repeat my mistakes from last time. My objective was just see what happens with what I bring to the show. My character was called JN-8R, a cleaning robot with a malfunctioning control panel that could make him easily reprogrammable. This was something I added so that I absolutely had top go with the flow should anyone take advantage of this quirk. I started my section as a good natured, humble android working with the other on board janitor and ended up becoming a Scottish antagonist standing up for the rights of mechanical beings everywhere. Along the way was the inclusion of many songs, three of which I made up on the spot with other performers accompanied amazingly by our in-house pianist. Having had no previous practice in making up songs at the time, this was being thrown in at the deep end most incredibly. But due to be much more open with my character, I was able to fully accept and build (another big improv rule) on what was being offered. A much better time was had on this occasion.
Which brings us to the most recent improvathon. After a couple of postponements for obvious reasons, the town of Trinity Creek was brought to life on 31st March-1st April 2022. “Way Out West” was something of which I’m immensely proud to have been a part. I played the character of Jeremiah Archer, which was an interesting development in itself. I had originally planned a character by the name of Colonel Francis Kennedy, a restauranteur who was bringing his brand of chicken to the town (checked the initials, you’ll work out the gag). During the original run up to our dates in 2020, we were asked to provide pictures for some promo artwork. I didn’t have the costume at the time, so I put on a white shirt, waistcoat and a tie made up of a shoelace and called him Jeremiah Archer, trustworthy barkeeper. When the show came around, there was already a few business types in the cast, but no one running the bar, so Jeremiah was brought back into the fold. It turned out to be the right choice.
It was the first time I’d been asked to do the full 24 hours, so it was going to be a huge test of my endurance. Having taken advice from others from previous improvathons, I felt the only way I could get through it was to be part of as much of the show as possible. That doesn’t mean my character went on whenever they wanted, but that any of us could double up as supporting characters to a particular scene or even be scenery itself (or in the case of my old lady character that wanted a part in the local production of Grease, both!). The more active I could be in the show as a whole, the easier I found things. Apart from flagging quite hugely during the Saturday afternoon shows, I found it to be not as tiring as I anticipated.
I fully learned how keeping the character’s reason for being in the play’s setting as simple as possible was all for the best. It left so much more room to develop the character and their relationships with others. When I say relationships, I mean all manner of them. My character started up at odds with the sheriff and his employees in the form of the singing duo The Something Sisters, going on to form an evil unit with the pastor and the railway tycoon, only to turn full circle when discovering one of the Sisters was in fact his daughter after a past relationship with the other Sister who was in fact her mother (soap opera writers, eat your heart out!). Along the way we had travelling circus trains, a ventriloquist puppet that were their own character, marriages, horses portrayed by brooms, the aforementioned local production by the Trinity Creek amateur dramatics society, vampire, vampire hunters and musical numbers performed to live piano, show recordings and acapella! And that’s to name a few over the course of a whole day.
The only down point to doing shows like this is that they will never happen again. That’s both the beauty and the curse of improvised shows. In that moment of imagination and performance, you can create something that is far from immaculate in terms of production but is absolutely perfect for that show. I managed to act like I never have before, creating emotional moments with actual tears streaming (the time being awake may have helped, but still, proper emotion!).
I certainly feel like the journey I’ve been on with these improvathons have made me a better performer in all aspects. Keeping things simple, being open to new ideas, throwing yourself into things, keeping up with the development of an overall story arc; all these things I have improved upon and will continue to. Thanks again to everyone associated with these shows, you were all superb!
By the way, next year’s is going to be 48 hours long……Dare I?……
