Good Things Come In Threes: No. 3 Neil Curran

If you've never been to an improv show in Ireland, you might be surprised to find the extent of a scene that’s spreading rapidly beyond the basement club stage.

When Curran was first initiated into the cult of improv, Cork’s Snatch club was the only dedicated outpost. He was plying his trade as part of a theatre group, but found the world of theatre ‘elitist’ and ‘rigid’.

Much like combining Jameson, Ginger and Lime to create something a little bit special, improv relies on collaborative spirit, enthusiasm, and no shortage of inspiration. Now, with Curran at the helm, Dublin is host to one of the world’s fastest growing Improv Festivals, attracting artists from across the world.

"A few years ago I was teaching a class in Shanghai," he tells us. "I was working with friend who had moved over and learned Chinese through teaching improv. Naively, I presumed there was no real scene in Asia – then I found out there’s festivals in Hong Kong, Seoul, Manila. Naturally, I thought: why don’t we have one in Dublin?"

The success of the festival has been built on the bedrock of years of hard work by Curran and the rest of the improve community. He leads from the front with his own show, Neil+1. The concept could strike the fear of god into any improv newbie: at each show he plucks an audience member, preferably one who’s never been to a show before (let alone performed) and invites them on stage to riff with him.

For anybody who’s been on the receiving end of abuse by stand-ups, this may sound like hell. Curran is at pains to make the whole process a positive experience: “The aim is to make the other person look good – the philosophy of improv is that there’s no wrong way to do it. I’ve never had a disaster with Neil+1 – once the audience member moves out of survival mode, you can see a complete change come over them, and that’s when they get creative.”

It’s not just on the stage that Curran is preaching the power of performance. Realising there are only so many mindfulness gurus you can lock employees into a conference room with, employers and institutions are booking improv crash courses for their staff. Neil visits the Googles, O2s and Facebooks of the country for workshops that are becoming an increasingly popular way of learning how to be comfortable making a bit of a tit of yourself in front of your peers and realising just how elastic your brain and body can be. In improv, he says, “it’s not what you teach; it’s how you teach it”.

Curran explains that the beauty of improv is its virality. “There’s not much that compares to the hit, the thrill of getting your first laugh or round of applause. But it’s the kind of thing that you can’t relate through words, so you go off and convince your friends to try it too. You know, like cults."

If improv is a cult, then Curran makes for a charismatic leader. We ask him to let us in on the secret mantra for any new initiates: he replies with the sort of positive outlook to which Jameson subscribes: "do it, do it, do it."

See how you can combine the ideal ingredients of the perfect night out and experience something different with Jameson, Ginger & Lime.
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