This is a post in our "Five Questions" series of interviews with Improv Conspiracy members.  During the 2013 Melbourne International Comedy Festival we'll be posting a new interview on every day that we have a show. You can find out more about our show "Our Friend Harold" and buy tickets by clicking here!

What was the first improv show you saw that made you think "wow, I'd like to do that!"?

I can’t remember seeing a particular show but I do remember reading a book (Bossypants by Tina Fey) that discussed Improv and some of the general rules that players follow. I can specifically remember thinking, "wow, I'd like to do that!" So I did. 

This is a post in our "Five Questions" series of interviews with Improv Conspiracy members.  During the 2013 Melbourne International Comedy Festival we'll be posting a new interview on every day that we have a show. You can find out more about our show "Our Friend Harold" and buy tickets by clicking here!

What was the first improv show you saw that made you think "wow, I'd like to do that!"?

My brother Liam – who has five years on me – doing his school TheatreSports competition when I was in Year Seven. It was love at first sight! Although, to be fair, for the first 18 years of my life I was so in thrall to be my brother that the mere fact of his participation in any particular activity was enough to lock me on a new life trajectory. We can just be thankful he picked improv as opposed to, say, white supremacy.

This is a post in our "Five Questions" series of interviews with Improv Conspiracy members.  During the 2013 Melbourne International Comedy Festival we'll be posting a new interview on every day that we have a show, and on a few other days when our Artistic Director is bored!  You can find out more about our show "Our Friend Harold" and buy tickets by clicking here!

What was the first improv you saw that made you think "Wow, I'd like to do that!"?

I think the first impro I saw was The Big HOO-HAA! in Perth. I was already doing standup and there were a few comedians who improvised onstage, but it was different. Having other performers respecting your idea and helping build a shared imagination is something really inspiring.

What aspects of the Harold do you find the most rewarding? The most challenging?

The most rewarding parts of Harold for me are also the most challenging. The third beat- trying to thread ideas and concepts from what's gone before all together is especially challenging, and can be so rewarding when you feel the whole group is thinking as one. So yeah, hive minds... that's what I find difficult.

This is a post in our "Five Questions" series of interviews with Improv Conspiracy members.  During the 2013 Melbourne International Comedy Festival we'll be posting a new interview on every day that we have a show!  You can find out more about our show "Our Friend Harold" and buy tickets by clicking here!

What was the first improv show you saw that made you think "wow, I'd like to do that!"?

I think it was Spontaneous Broadway. I was blown away by how it all came together, I couldn't get my head around it. “What do you mean they are MAKING IT UP?”

What aspects of the Harold do you find the most rewarding? The most challenging?

I love how we can come up with whatever we want – completely different worlds or ridiculous situations - and play with our ideas over a number of minutes or scenes. It's so rewarding when everything ties together neatly at the end and you can see the audience go “wooahhhhh”. The challenging thing is saving the scene when things start to go awry. But that's where your team mates all help each other out. Love those guys!!

This is a post in our "Five Questions" series of interviews with Improv Conspiracy members.  During the 2013 Melbourne International Comedy Festival we'll be posting a new interview on every day that we have a show!  You can find out more about our show "Our Friend Harold" and buy tickets by clicking here!

What was the first improv show you saw that made you think "wow, I'd like to do that!"?

My introduction to improv mostly came through repeats of the UK version of ‘Whose Line is it Anyway?’ I don’t think there were any specific scenes or moments that necessarily struck a chord, it was more just a contagious feeling of joy and silliness that the players were exuding that made me want to get involved. 

This is a post in our "Five Questions" series of interviews with Improv Conspiracy members.  During the 2013 Melbourne International Comedy Festival we'll be posting a new interview on every day that we have a show!  You can find out more about our show "Our Friend Harold" and buy tickets by clicking here!

What was the first improv you saw that made you think "Wow, I'd like to do that!"?

It’s going back a bit but I believe it was an old video of Australian Theatre Sports our Drama teacher showed us when I was 13. I remember thinking that it must be scripted, as nobody could be that amazing and God-like by just coming up with stuff on the spot. I decided then and there that I would investigate how I too could become one of these superior beings.

This is a post in our "Five Questions" series of interviews with Improv Conspiracy members.  During the 2013 Melbourne International Comedy Festival we'll be posting a new interview on every day that we have a show!  You can find out more about our show "Our Friend Harold" and buy tickets by clicking here!

What was the first improv show you saw that made you think "wow, I'd like to do that!"?

I can't actually remember the first 'wow' improv show I saw, because I started doing drama when I was young, so by the time I was seeing shows I was already familiar with improvisation. However, when travelling through America, I saw shows by 'Improv Asylum', 'Second City' and 'IO Chicago'. Although I was already doing classes at the time, seeing these shows really inspired me and opened my eyes to the range of formats and the endless possibilities that come from imagination and creativity. It also made me jump at the chance to start doing Harolds, because it was more in line with some of the things I had seen overseas and I knew it would broaden my improv horizons!

This is a post in our "Five Questions" series of interviews with Improv Conspiracy members.

What was the first improv show you saw that made you think "wow, I'd like to do that!"?

The BBC's "Pebble Mill at One" circa 1985. I was at home from school sick watching this now defunct English daytime TV show, when they had a troupe of local actors on performing, a new acting style called "improv". It was crazy. There were no scripts. They just made it up as they went along. They wore bad jumpers. Wild.

Back then though, there was a lot of buzz about improv in the British Isles, so much so a local group could get on TV, just do some short form games and everyone would be impressed. I seem to remember this group playing a scene involving a box. Unfortunately the box never got opened leaving this viewer wonder to this day as to its content. Lesson 1: Open the box.

This is a post in our "Five Questions" series of interviews with Improv Conspiracy members.  We aim to publish one per week over the next few months!

What was the first improv you saw that made you think "Wow, I'd like to do that!"?

In 1998, I wrote a (real, handwritten ink) letter to my mate Geary saying, I've read about this upcoming show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, and made some precocious evaluation like "the concept has exciting potential, do you not agree?" Like Columbus 'discovered' America, I discovered improvisation.

This is a post in our "Five Questions" series of interviews with Improv Conspiracy members.  We aim to publish one per week over the next few months!

What was the first improv you saw that made you think "Wow, I'd like to do that!"?

I guess it would be Whose Line Is It Anyway, the British version. I particularly loved the songs. I did a bit of improv and a lot Commedia dell'Arte (a style of theatre where stock characters improvise within specific scenarios) at school and university but then I took a break from performing for a bunch of years. About a year or so ago I started doing some Standing Up Comedy but found myself quickly getting a little bored and a little lonely performing by myself.  Improv was a certain cure to this loneliness, as I would have team mates that would have to be my friends (or at least act like my friends on stage!), I did a bunch of impro/improv classes and now I'm the most popular kid in school.