Choosing the game

Avoid solving maths puzzles and claw back some agency in your scenes

So many games to choose

Game is a pretty nebulous concept in long-form improv. Whole training schools and courses are dedicated to it, or approaching it with a bewildering array of synonyms and related concepts like ‘the unusual point of view’, ‘the thing’, ‘a repeatable pattern of behaviour’, ‘peas in a pod’, ‘what’s fun about a scene’ etc. Game is the sort of thing improvisers know when they see, but struggle to define in a clear way.

We definitely know when a scene doesn’t have it, after which we get to whip ourselves with a million different theories as to why it didn’t work. Unavoidably in classes and post-show notes, game of the scene can become an academic exercise, or some kind of maths puzzle to solve: Do X + Y, get a hilarious scene.

For students, teachers and experienced performers alike, this ultimately often just sucks a ton of fun out of performing. Furrowed brows on the backline while your teammates figure the ‘correct’ game out so they can help (or butcher) it. Or a pair of improvisers selflessly establish a base grounded reality to no laughs for an uncomfortably long time, so others can pick out something ‘shiny’ or ‘unusual’ to explore in that context. Usually this means the mere suggestion of a playable fun ‘game’ is piled on aggressively before its has a chance to take off, and a scene being swept on the first laugh.

This all makes Game feel like something we’re not quite ever in control of, or that there’s some perfectly formed version of ‘The Game’ that we have to mine from every scene. ‘Finding the Game’ is presented as some kind of virtue, something that good improvisers do quickly and bad ones struggle with.

None of this is quite true and ignores tons of scenes that are no less enjoyable for having a messier mix. In the right hands, scenes can sustain multiple games at once, or focus on one for a while before pivoting to another, all while keeping the essential essence of the characters up to that point. Or they don’t really have a game that’s easy to define at all - maybe a character is just rocking unpredictably back and forth in their seat with some weird energy that’s never explained (credit: DNAYS’ Tim Grewcock in a recent rehearsal). In those cases, the improvisers might not be ‘finding the game’ at all, but just ‘choosing’ what’s fun to play.

I like ‘choosing the game’ over ‘finding the game’. It demystifies the game being something to hunt down like Atlantis, puts way more agency in the hands of the improvisers and also speaks to the wealth of possibilities at any point in a scene. There’s lots of possible, valid and honest choices improvisers can make in a scene, many of which will work just as well as any other, particularly if we commit to them.

We don’t have to solve some equation to make a scene work, we just need to choose what we want to play. There’s many ways to skin an improv cat.

Of course, while the long-form ‘cool kids’ are doing all this navel gazing about what the essence of improv comedy is, very many successful short-form acts are cracking on just fine playing games of their own, with clearly defined parameters we’re all on board with from the get-go. Sounds like heaven (See Susan Harrison’s great article about this). Audiences love it. Everyone goes home happy instead of whimpering over esoteric notes about the tag run in the second beat. Great choice.

What do you think is best to do with ‘the game’: find it, choose it, bop it? Let me know in the comments!

ENDNOTES

Delighted that a short I appear in - Bitter Pubs #049: Purgatory - will be showing at Loco Comedy Film Festival at Brixton Ritzy Cinema on 11th May. You can pick up a ticket here, or if you can’t make it, watch the film here!

Props to director Jack Harris for masterfully shepherding the full range of my acting skills as I lie silently on the floor of a pub.

From the archive: You're absolutely insane, but I still love you - Some tips on playing a ‘voice of reason’ character that helps the unusual point-of-view play its game