Seasoned improv comics Liam Brennan and Tom Jacob-Ewles, ‘The Two Horsemen’ bring their new show, Stranded, to Camden Fringe next month.
“Join them as the school drama club survivors in this interactive comedy show that weaves audience participation, scripted comedy and improvised sketches into one gorgeous island getaway.”
Where: Rosemary Branch Theatre
When: 16-18 Aug
Ticket link: https://camdenfringe.com/events/stranded/
Liam took time out to tell us all about the show.
What are you looking forward to the most at Camden Fringe?
It’ll be our first public performance of Stranded, so it’ll be great to put it in front of a crowd.
For the past few years we’ve used Camden as a showcase for what we’ve been working on over the year, so there’s a climactic feeling for us every August.
There’s also an excitement and freshness in having a space that’s much bigger than last year, meaning we can be more experimental with physicality and playing with our audience.
Tell me about Stranded. It features the two of you, Liam and Tom, in an interactive and (partly) improvised show. So what’s it all about?
Tom and I play a teacher and a TA of a school’s Drama club that crash land on a deserted tropical island with our students (the audience).
We perform improv games to entertain the kids, while there’s an ongoing power struggle between mine and Tom’s characters. Think of it as Whose Line is it Anyway meeting Lord of the Flies.
The main plotline is scripted meaning we get a cohesive and satisfying story over the 50 minute runtime but we also get to show our chemistry and skill as an improv double act during the improv games we play.
The combination of scripted theatre and improv is something we experimented with at last year’s fringe and this feels the culmination of that initial concept.
While we’re proud of what we achieved last year in ‘The Two Horsemen’, Stranded feels like a more playful, streamlined and satisfying production.
We can’t wait for folks to see it.
What’s your background before developing this show, and how would you describe your creative process?
While we experimented with combining improv and scripted comedy together last year, we’ve been friends and collaborators for the past 15 years.
We met at the University of Kent while we were doing our Masters degree in Stand-up Comedy and worked together as improvisers and various theatre productions.
Since then we’ve co-hosted game shows, created a comedy wrestling show, and worked on our improv double act amongst a dozen other projects.
Knowing each other for so long has smoothed out the creative process but it has still been challenging to create a show that combines the best elements of improvisation and scripted material.
For the past year, we’ve been meeting up once a week and come together to pitch jokes and plotline developments.
One of the greatest challenges was developing our teacher and TA characters and finding reasonable motivations for what makes them tick without just making them vehicles for plot, which we were certainly guilty of early in the writing process.
An actor approached us after the end of our last show and in praising our show, commented on how we must feel so relaxed to return to doing scripted material after creating improvised scenes on the spot.
Speaking solely for myself, I actually feel the complete opposite. As an improv comedian, improvisation is my bread and butter and while I’d like to say I’ve become a good actor and writer, that takes way more effort for me.
I think that’s why we’ve spent way more of our time in the creative process working on the scripted elements. The improvisation is playtime for us.
You are playing the show at Rosemary Branch Theatre – has this been an inspiring place to plan and develop Stranded?
While we had great fun in our show last year, we were in a much smaller space so there were certain elements of the show that were challenging.
Any physical routines felt boxed in and our improvised scenes were more static than we would have liked.
Having the much larger space at the Rosemary Branch is an exciting challenge and we’ve made sure to have parts of the show that use the much deeper and wider stage.
I genuinely want to get my cardio on a bit during the improv scenes, I haven’t told Tom yet.
The raised seating is also so much more useful for connecting with and being able to see the audience.
I’ve been doing clowning workshops recently, and it made me realise how little improvisers tend to face their audience, especially considering the artform prides itself on audience inclusion.
We want the audience to feel part of the fun, which is why we’re delighted to have such a cool space that facilitates play.
What’s next for you?
Once we’ve wrapped up our first run of Stranded at the Camden Fringe, we’re planning on taking the show on tour around the UK.
We’ve spent the last few years experimenting with combining improvisation and script, partly with a view towards making our improv as accessible to an audience as possible, and we think this show has cracked it. We can’t wait to play!
Closer to home, we’re also going to be working on our improv double act around improv and comedy nights in London.
Our ‘pure improv’ rehearsals have had to be on hold while we’ve been working with scripts, so it’s exciting that we’ll be able to return our focus to our roots.
My aim is to go to some improv festivals over the next year as both a student and a performer, and I would love to see some of the world with one of my best buds!