How To Twt - a review from the impro side
Twter saw a love affair bloom between two people who were trying to calm a dolphin, a dispute over the disciplining of some children in a castle who had just set fire to the servants and Don Juan looking for garden furniture.
Performed at the top of the stairs on the left in the foyer in the Old Vic on Sunday 18th, The Blatant Creation of Art (BCOA for short) plied their typewriter led impro art to front of house staff and passing clientelle - mainly heading for Hamlet at 2pm or The Man Who Sat Down at 2.30pm.
The idea was simple (or so we thought). Inspired by audience suggestions, two writers would immediately write script for two actors. The actors could repeat lines if they wished to, but the scene would only move forward when the next writer produced the next line.
With somebody else's audience filtering in - or should that be through? - the Twter team of writers Ian Potter and Mel Joslin, bashed out speeches for actors Louisa Gummer and Simon Kent. The typewriters involved were a hefty Olympia (made in the days when 'portable' meant you could fit it in a box that had a handle on it) and a rather beautiful 1961 Pullman 'Erika' (both sourced from a couple in Bideford and purchased in the car park of Taunton Dean services on the M5 North Bound).
Billed as 'Twitter without the IT' since each speech had to be 140 characters or less, some of the 'Young People' in the crowd instantly got it and watched attentively. Which is just as well because the introduction of typewriters to the made up medium was never going to make for rapid fire impro. The actors emoted while each line was hammered out and each writer waited to hear the line delivered before hammering out their own response. Despite this, interest was held (see, it's not true about the attention span of audiences these days) laughter was provoked and only once was Mr Kent reduced to entertaining the crowd with a harmonica - an instrument he has never learned to play.
There was a divorced couple in DFS, a licked stick of Blackpool Rock - nicely echoing a strange purple foam tube brought in by a Hamlet audience member - there was a less than hush-hush clandestine affair in a cinema and there was Don Juan looking for a beeeeeench (inspirations: irate (the emotion), garden centre furniture (bench), rake (Don Juan)).
Sadly one wonderful speech was entirely lost when the front of house manager announced the house was now open for Hamlet. Odd the effect unreserved seating has on people. No interest in the outcome of the impro scene they started at all...
However, the BCOA pressed on with the next three inspirations: the genre of Children's TV, the object of a bag of heroin and the emotion 'unctuous'. Just as it was beginning to look as if our audience were pre-writing the scenes for us, it became clear this particular Twter had coincided with the arrival of the audience for the second show of the afternoon. The Man Who Sat Down is a show aimed at children of 4 and over. No man sat down, but three kids did just as Ms Gummer delivered Ms Joslin's line about needing a spoon, some tin foil and a Glasgow accent. Mr Kent's Glasgow accent was as convincing as his Spanish accent (it was, after all, the same accent) and both actors started praying the writers would take their new found audience into consideration as the typewriters snapped off again...
It was during this scene that Mr Potter finally decided enough was enough and that if the actors couldn't read his typing mistakes properly, then he'd have to do it himself. Leaving Erika vacant, however, he found himself in the deep end and at Ms Joslin's request had to improvise a song with Mr Kent on the subject of (audience suggestion) Lego. It was the best improvised song there has ever been. That was sung about Lego. In the foyer of the Old Vic. To my knowledge.
Following this tour de force there was just about time to explain who we were, what we were doing and what the typewriters were when the house opened for the kid's performance and they left.
The BCOA dedicated the final Twt to the usherette who'd watched the whole thing. Probably because her job was to stand there rather than through choice, but she thought it had been fun, and so did we.
Next Twter TBA.
Performed at the top of the stairs on the left in the foyer in the Old Vic on Sunday 18th, The Blatant Creation of Art (BCOA for short) plied their typewriter led impro art to front of house staff and passing clientelle - mainly heading for Hamlet at 2pm or The Man Who Sat Down at 2.30pm.
The idea was simple (or so we thought). Inspired by audience suggestions, two writers would immediately write script for two actors. The actors could repeat lines if they wished to, but the scene would only move forward when the next writer produced the next line.
With somebody else's audience filtering in - or should that be through? - the Twter team of writers Ian Potter and Mel Joslin, bashed out speeches for actors Louisa Gummer and Simon Kent. The typewriters involved were a hefty Olympia (made in the days when 'portable' meant you could fit it in a box that had a handle on it) and a rather beautiful 1961 Pullman 'Erika' (both sourced from a couple in Bideford and purchased in the car park of Taunton Dean services on the M5 North Bound).
Billed as 'Twitter without the IT' since each speech had to be 140 characters or less, some of the 'Young People' in the crowd instantly got it and watched attentively. Which is just as well because the introduction of typewriters to the made up medium was never going to make for rapid fire impro. The actors emoted while each line was hammered out and each writer waited to hear the line delivered before hammering out their own response. Despite this, interest was held (see, it's not true about the attention span of audiences these days) laughter was provoked and only once was Mr Kent reduced to entertaining the crowd with a harmonica - an instrument he has never learned to play.
There was a divorced couple in DFS, a licked stick of Blackpool Rock - nicely echoing a strange purple foam tube brought in by a Hamlet audience member - there was a less than hush-hush clandestine affair in a cinema and there was Don Juan looking for a beeeeeench (inspirations: irate (the emotion), garden centre furniture (bench), rake (Don Juan)).
Sadly one wonderful speech was entirely lost when the front of house manager announced the house was now open for Hamlet. Odd the effect unreserved seating has on people. No interest in the outcome of the impro scene they started at all...
However, the BCOA pressed on with the next three inspirations: the genre of Children's TV, the object of a bag of heroin and the emotion 'unctuous'. Just as it was beginning to look as if our audience were pre-writing the scenes for us, it became clear this particular Twter had coincided with the arrival of the audience for the second show of the afternoon. The Man Who Sat Down is a show aimed at children of 4 and over. No man sat down, but three kids did just as Ms Gummer delivered Ms Joslin's line about needing a spoon, some tin foil and a Glasgow accent. Mr Kent's Glasgow accent was as convincing as his Spanish accent (it was, after all, the same accent) and both actors started praying the writers would take their new found audience into consideration as the typewriters snapped off again...
It was during this scene that Mr Potter finally decided enough was enough and that if the actors couldn't read his typing mistakes properly, then he'd have to do it himself. Leaving Erika vacant, however, he found himself in the deep end and at Ms Joslin's request had to improvise a song with Mr Kent on the subject of (audience suggestion) Lego. It was the best improvised song there has ever been. That was sung about Lego. In the foyer of the Old Vic. To my knowledge.
Following this tour de force there was just about time to explain who we were, what we were doing and what the typewriters were when the house opened for the kid's performance and they left.
The BCOA dedicated the final Twt to the usherette who'd watched the whole thing. Probably because her job was to stand there rather than through choice, but she thought it had been fun, and so did we.
Next Twter TBA.
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