Scotland & the North

The last night in Edinburgh was fun. Went to another improv show — third show in three days — and one of the teams was from New York. I was so glad to have been in town for this festival. I’ve been to a couple of improv shows in New York but it hasn’t been something I was too thrilled about. These teams were great. I might have to give it another try when I get home. I watch a lot of British TV at home, and I really think they do an amazing job with their stand up comedy. They create panel shows and game shows just to highlight their comedians and give them a chance to riff off of one another. Taskmaster and QI are great examples of this — or Eight Out of Ten Cats. I’m obsessed with these shows at home and can watch them on a loop for days. So I’ve become really familiar with their comedians and with British comedy in general. It’s different for sure. The audience reacts to the simplest puns and innuendos. Sometimes it can be Mr. Bean levels of silliness, but most of the time it’s witty and clever, and just good-hearted, intelligent humor. They use the same 20-30 comedians in all of these shows and you really get to know their personalities and idiosyncrasies. In a way it reminds me of American comedy and TV in the 70s when some of our comedians would do a circuit of game shows and variety shows. We don’t seem to have that anymore, but the Brits definitely do. There’s a national cultural identity that is preserved and promoted through all of this and I really admire it. That’s a long way of saying that I was not surprised that their approach to improv would be more sophisticated and clever — just pure entertainment.Read more