Bendy House interview

Edinburgh-bound improv duo Bendy House talk to us about perfecting their craft abroad, and how the art form is excitingly on the rise in the UK.

Who are Bendy House?

Bendy House are Chris Read and Danny O'Hara. We have been performing together for 18 months and this will be our second Edinburgh Fringe. We met when Chris moved back to his hometown of Norwich and started up his company Dogface Improv. Danny came to some of the workshops and we bonded over a mutual love for this art form. These days we are partners in both improv and life!

Norwich sounds like it has a thriving improv scene?

It's certainly on the up! We (Dogface) have been running courses and workshops and doing shows for two and a half years and our community is growing. There are also a couple of other groups in Norwich, so we think we can call that an improv scene!

Norwich is a little hidden gem to be honest. A lot of people realise how much of a creative and interesting city it is.

When most people think of improv, they probably think of big groups... but there's just two of you. Is that more challenging?

Yes and no. It's pretty intense being in a duo. In many ways it's easier because with just two of you, you can really get on the same wavelength and tune into each other. You get used to each others' energies and gain access to the mystical improv thing they call "group mind".

On the flip side, there's nowhere to hide! In a show with a cast of 6 or 8 people, you spend plenty of time out of the active scene, which gives you some thinking time. In a duo, you know you're going to be on stage for the whole 45 minute show, and you really have to trust your instincts and subconscious - but that's what improv is all about!

Have you two got to the stage you can read each other's minds then?

Haha! Also being a couple off stage, we feel like we get pretty close to that sometimes! But we also enjoy surprising each other on stage, and while we might sometimes say something with an idea of how the other person will react, at least 50% of the time it doesn't go that way.

We genuinely have no clue where a show is going to go, and that's super exciting!

What's been your favourite scene ever? And, to reverse on that positivity, the worst audience suggestion too?

Danny can instantly answer the favourite scene: We had a wonderful 20 minute scene at the Fringe last year involving a cast of characters staying in a caravan park. Improv scenes always sound rubbish when you try to explain them (you had to be there man!) - but this one was lovely. We love doing character swap where we create lots of characters and, as performers, jump in and out of them during the scene. This one had some lovely characters that stay with us to this day!

Chris can instantly answer the worst suggestion one: "Biomass". We got that at Edinburgh last year. We take one word at the beginning of the show to give us some initial inspiration, then do 45 minutes from there. That was definitely one of those where we took the word and looked at each other with a silent expression of panic before starting! BUT it ended up being a great show, because there is always something interesting to be found.

How have you been preparing for the 2018 Edinburgh Festival?

We've had a particularly exciting summer this year studying improv in the spiritual home of the art form, Chicago. We took a five week intensive programme at the IO theatre - which is where longform improv was first performed as an art form in its own right, as opposed to a tool for sketch or acting.

We basically did one year's worth of learning in 5 weeks and have had an amazing time being taught by and watching some of the best improvisers in the world. In our first week, the theatre we had classes in, it had the creator of longform improv in an urn on a shelf! So we really can't wait to see how all of this manifests itself in our shows.

What have you learnt whilst out there?

So much! We've definitely learnt a great deal of new technique and had a lot of stage time working through various aspects of this craft. We've discovered that being immersed in your art form so completely is quite an experience.

There are 10,000 active improvisers in Chicago and every single night of the week you have a choice of 10 or 20 shows across about 6 dedicated improv theatres. We've seen an awful lot of great improv, which we think has been just as valuable as the classes.

There's not really any improv on British TV any more. Would the return of a show like Whose Line Is It Anyway?, or a new format, help the genre in the live environment too?

Definitely. Chris can remember watching Whose Line? in his teens and thinking "my god I want to do that!", and it takes a presence like that to turn people onto new things.

We would welcome a show like that coming back; it would still work. Whose Line? is a type of improv called "shortform" which uses game-type structures, and it's great. But there's also this wonderful thing called longform (which is what our show is) where we don't use games, but instead it's more like a series of sketches, or an improvised play - we think longform could work really well on TV too.

Improv is definitely on the rise in the UK. It's been more established in the US, and it's a really common route into comedy acting there. Chances are, if you see an American comedy actor, they have come through one of the big improv schools in America, like IO or Second City. But we're seeing more and more people wanting to get involved or watch improv in the UK, and it's worth mentioning that comedy performance is only one possible end product of doing improv, it's also just a lovely thing to meet up and do. It's so much fun, it's sociable and is great for wellbeing and good mental health.

We're really excited about the future of this really quite new art form. It's a great time to be an improviser!