Posts Tagged ‘Neil Curran’

Fancy something a little less ordinary to entertain you this evening? Then this may well be the event for you…

Chicken & Fox Productions in association with the Children’s Research & Medical Foundation, Our Lady’s Hospital Crumlin present “Sad Sods At Christmas”, an evening of monologues and solo performances.

Featuring a broad range of performing talent, the show will see a variety of pieces across different genres performed that will make you laugh, cry and touch your soul!

The show is running for only 1 night and tickets are limited! All profits go to Crumlin Hospital.

I’ll be honest. Improv scares me. It’s not that I don’t like or respect it as an art form it’s just that because of the nature of it’s very being you end up with a situation that means it is never going to be consistent. It will range from the purely awful to the wonderful via the awkward and puerile. It can’t always be “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” or can it?

Our MC for the evening was Neil Curran. He started the night off with that beloved choice of all improvisational comedians out there; the dragging of a poor unfortunate audience member up on stage. I can’t fault Neil for what was to follow as it didn’t make me laugh as much as I had hoped because the options given to him by the audience member weren’t great. But that’s not to outright blame the girl who came up on stage. It’s one of those things that will work this week and not the next. It was an example of what can go wrong at an improv. Neil tried… boy did he try. Having been one of those audience members in the past I know the feeling of it not working and the tension it causes within the venue. Oddly… it’s a lot more enjoyable up on stage in those instances I found.

On the night we had two improv troupes that were put together over the course of 2-3 months by Neil at his improv comedy classes. It was the quality of some of the content on the night that showed that Neil really is good at what he does and is a credit to getting these guys up on stage after such a short period.

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We love to support new comedy here so when we heard about a free gig containing not one but Two new improv troupes we simply had to share it with you!

Having recently taken their own journey into the world of improvisation and humour, this showcase features performers who will take the audience on a journey into unscripted, unrehearsed long form improv comedy!

MC and tutor, Neil Curran, will be warming up the audience with a performance of his “Neil+1″ which features Neil and a random stranger from the audience!

Following this, we will see improvised performances from 2 improv troupes who will be creating audience inspired stories on stage:

“Laura’s Lads”
* Laura Lynham
* Johann Fox
* Peter Kilmeade
* Kevin Neary
* Doug Hinds
* Brian Worrell
* Eoin Carney

“Pipe Dream”
* Erin Hug
* Pearl O’Rourke
* Brenda Laffan
* Fiona Walsh
* Fiona Buckley

Entry to the event is free and we will be holding a fundraiser in aid of the Children’s Medical & Research Foundation in Crumlin Children’s Hospital. http://www.cmrf.org/main/index

We here at thecomedyscoop love to experience something a little different to the norm and the latest brain child of  Neil Curran and Órla Mc Govern ‘Cause & Effect’ certainly looks set to be just that!

Cause & Effect is a night of improvised theatre and comedy which features improvisation formats never before seen in Ireland!

The first half of the show is entitled “Me & You” – One lucky audience member is invited up on stage, and becomes part of the duo. They will then get to experience the thrill of being the ‘You’ in the ‘Me and You’! Nothing is planned. Scenes are created on the spot, using audience suggestions. Anything can happen, and probably will!

The second half of the show is entitled “Trio”. Audience members are invited to suggest the beginnings of three quirky characters. Each of their adventures are musically scored live onstage. Sit back and watch in anticipation, as the three very unique stories unfold …

So we come to week 6 of improv. The final week. In this week’s class we focused on scenes and straight improv but not before we did some warm up exercises!

Starting off we did “ninja” where we killed each other with random tools and making random sounds and movements, I can tell you one thing I wouldn’t want to be killed by any of that lot! We then did biippidy bippidy bop (I am open to correction on that spelling!) this was a lot of fun! It ended up with a lot of pleading looks to Neil and him having a couple of tough decisions to make!

Three line dialogue was back this week! Lots of stories including me not putting the bins out and calling my housemate a crazy lady. It was at this point I realised I was ALWAYS angry in my scenes…..hmmm a trend there perhaps?

The night was all about open scenes. This essentially meant getting one word suggestions from the “audience” and making scenes around that word. Sounds easy right? Eh no…. For one of our first ones, me and my partner got lampshade. It ended up with me yelling at him that I was leaving him in the middle of a light shop…..again angry…. Hmmm….

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