Ready for the BLANK

Hello and welcome to BLANK the Blog!

We always have a lot to say about ourselves, so we figured what better way to be egotistical on a mass scale than via a blog of our own? But we hope that you'll find our musings enjoyable and wholeheartedly invite you to comment as we go.

Last night we had our last show for the year - and our first in a few months. And, I think we all loved being together again and loved what ensemble spirit we've created over the course of the year and loved having a full house and loved mucking around and loved knowing we could trust each other in a beautiful, lovely, lovey, dovey, lovey, love-in kind of a way...

Feeling sick yet? Sorry. You see, my sugary prose come from the fact that, with this show, the ensemble maketh the show. So it helps that our gatherings are lovey love-ins. And stuff.

Don't worry, we still make crass jokes (the closing message of last night's show was "find your inner-Wang"), we still do silly dances, and we still sing bolshy rock/soul numbers. It's not all ballads, braiding and barley sugars.

If you've never seen our show, or have only seen it once, or if you don't know much about improvisation, the main thing to know is this: what we do is made up. Completely. On the spot.

When we step on stage, we honestly don't know anymore about what's going to happen than you do when you sit down in the theatre. This includes our musician and our lighting op.

There are no set characters, no plot, no framework, no score, no set numbers, no set dances, no set harmonies. We go from having nothing, to having one suggestion from you in the audience, to having an opening number, and then stories unfold, songs get sung, and by the end you have a musical - one that you'll see once and never again (unless we've filmed it and put clips online).

Absolutely everything you see is being created as it happens. And then it never happens again.

All of this raises the inevitable question that BLANKers (and improvisers generally) get asked...

"Are you insane?!"

Obviously, the answer is "Yes". But, as the improvisation teachers say, it's a "Yes, and..."

Yes and it's fun. Yes and, more often than not, it works. Yes and people seem to like watching it. Yes and some people think we're lying when we say it's improvised (which is really bizarre considering how, well... bizarre our shows can be). Yes and, above all, it's fun.

You should come check it out next year on 8th January at The Roxbury (182 St John's Rd Glebe), 8pm. You'll have a BLANKing good time.

I also promise we'll stop using BLANK puns at you.

Maybe.