The Improvisers Are Coming To Take You Away

Robots with penis extensions and no batteries. No, it s not the McCracken Tribunal but a night at the Comedy Improv up them stairs in Dublin s International Bar.

It s weird, wacky and, for the most past, wonderful, watching the collective imagination of this comedy quintet running wild. The nature of the beast means that there s always going to be an element of hit-and-miss about proceedings but suffice to say Messers Paul Tylak, Michelle Read, Brendan Dempsey, Tara Flynn and Ian Coppinger keep the laughometer in the red often enough to make for an excellent night of live comedy and at only a fiver a head, it doesn t burn a hole in your pocket.
The audience tonight is made up of a healthy mix of Swedish, Scottish and Spanish tourists as well as loquacious locals willing and able to provide the necessary quips needed to keep the show on the road. Most of tonight s troupe are seasoned stand-up comedians in their own right Joe Rooney is the only absentee, being on duty in Edinburgh and so are well-placed to discuss the differences between going it alone on stage and improvising within a group.
The big thing about improv, explains Read, is that the audience have to be complicit in what you re doing. You invite them. The audience tonight were enjoying the fact that they were watching you potentially fuck up. So they are very much involved. With stand-up, you can give the impression that you re interacting with your audience, whereas with improv you really have to.
Improv is a group activity where you help each other out, says Tylak. Sometimes you watch each other dying... and really enjoy it! But no, if a scene is going downhill, you try and do something and intervene.
Dempsey takes up the point: It s not as tense or anxious as stand-up. With stand-up, you have a script and you know which way you re going to take the audience and you hope they re gonna go with you. With improv, all bets are off. It s a lot more fun.
Improv s also a lot less personal, adds Coppinger. When you re doing stand-up, it s something that you sat down and wrote yourself. If you get heckled or people don t like your stuff, you tend to take it personally.
Oh, so your robotic giant cock was not at all personal, then? pipes Read.
No, because I don t have a telescopic knob, retorts Coppinger, quietly.
The Comedy Improv started all of eight years ago in The International and has seen as many members come and go as Blanche DuBois. But however fluid the line-up has been, the current bunch are a very solid unit and will be taking the show to the Cafi Theatre in Bewleys of Grafton Street as part of the Dublin Theatre Fringe Festival, while a more permanent Tuesday night residency begins in Leeson Street s Sugar Club next month. The troupe hope to use the IT skills of veteran comedian Dermot Carmody to help build in a technological, interactive element to the show.
The Sugar Club is an ideal venue for us, says Tylak, because of its tiered seating and the potential to use a screen at the back of the stage where we could use a satellite link-up to someone, say, in another city as part of the show.
We might even get to the stage where people email in suggestions for us to act out, adds Coppinger.
It sounds like the team are going to try and drag improvised comedy into the 21st century. But when they started, how influential was the celebrated improvised comedy show, Whose Line Is It Anyway?
It is great watching them, says Tylak, because it just shows that improv when it s well organised can be good. There are other improv groups out there who I wouldn t give ha penny for.
The TV show is more gag-based, adds Dempsey. Whereas we prefer to concentrate on building scenes. The other thing to remember is that they shoot over two hours of footage and edit it down to the best hour or whatever. With us what you see is what you get.
* You can catch the Comedy Improv at the
Cafi Theatre in Bewleys of Grafton Street on Thurs 5th, Fri 6th, and Sat 7th October and Thurs 12th, Fri 13th and Sat 14th October as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival at 9.15pm
and every Tuesday at the Sugar Club at 9pm
as well as in the International Bar every Monday at 9.15pm.