Hello, and thank you for reading The Honesty Box. Today, I am so excited, because I’m about to lose control – and I think I like it (to quote the song I’m So Excited, by The Pointer Sisters).
I’ve been doing improvisation classes for a few weeks and we have a show at the end of November. An actual real, live audience will get tickets and take their seats in a small theatre in central London as I and the people I “play” with try to entertain them for an hour or so.
Improv, where you have to make up a scene with a partner based on a prompt (which could be anything from a random profession, like dog walker, to an object, such as a packet of frozen peas), is some people’s worst nightmare. You have no control about what prompts are going to come your way and there is absolutely no script.
Having to spell out my name by rapping each letter in front of an audience is only embarrassing if I let it be. Not giving a shit about how I look or sound is liberating
If there are any rules of improv, the main one is that you don’t have to try to be funny, cool or clever, according to our tutor, Conor Jatter from Hoopla Impro. Doing so seems false and is potentially alienating. I reckon that’s the first way improv relates to life – if I’m trying to be something other than who I am, then who am I kidding? Isn’t it best to show the raw, authentic me, and be honest about the fact that I’m basically winging it most of the time?
Friends say I’m brave for sticking myself on a stage in front of strangers and saying whatever comes into my head. But I think the two worst things that can happen are that I freeze and nothing comes out of my mouth, or I say something “stupid” and look foolish. However, that’s kind of the best part of it. Having to spell out my name by rapping each letter in front of an audience is only embarrassing if I let it be. Not giving a shit about how I look or sound is liberating and is a great way to stop worrying about what other people think.
In improv, I have little to no control over what’s going to happen next and I don’t find that scary at all
In improv, no words are too silly: you simply have to let things flow, and always try to be helpful to whomever you’re in a scene with – a technique called ‘yes, and,’ where you build on whatever the other person has just said. And this could be another rule for life – get curious about other people and stop thinking about yourself.
Ceding control is another big thing I’ve learnt. In life, I can sometimes question ‘what if’ a little too much – asking what might happen if I do something (or don’t), and then worrying about it. Worrying is an attempt to control something, but it is pointless: you often have to deal with whatever the situation is in the moment. In improv, I have little to no control over what’s going to happen next and I don’t find that scary at all.
What I really love about improv is it that it’s pure fun, where you have to be in that moment with someone else, listening to exactly what they’re saying and watching what they do, so you can respond. And whether the prompt is ‘kookaburra’ or ‘cucumber,’ you have to just roll with all of the curve balls – rather like life.
Things I like
Body control
Emily Ratajkowski is a model who got famous by being naked in a music video eight years ago. She’s just published a collection of essays called My Body, and has been interviewed by everyone from the BBC’s Newsnight to the New York Times about it. I’m fascinated by the idea that she makes money from letting people take pictures of her, but has had little control over what happens to those images, and at the same time is also dismissed by some for having a career based on how she looks. In one of the essays (previously published in New York Magazine), she writes about how a photographer produced a book of images of her from a shoot she was never paid for, profiting without her consent. Now, she is getting some of the power back, in selling an NFT of a picture of herself, standing in front of a picture of herself (yes, it’s complicated) – and by writing her book.
Stuck in the system
The Netflix series Maid has a depressing start: woman is emotionally abused by husband and runs away with daughter, only to be taken to court by him for removing the child from her home and not immediately putting a roof over her head. The woman - Alex, played by Margaret Qualley - takes a job as a cleaner, but it doesn’t pay enough to cover her childcare because she is only allowed to work a certain number of hours to get state benefits. I haven’t yet finished watching the series, but it shows how complex and hopeless the “system” can be, though I hear it ends on a positive note.
Great article, improv sounds fun, I might try it.