A new "first of its kind" festival is coming to Liverpool city centre later this month - and it's ideal for theatre buffs.
The first ever edition of the Liverpool Improvisation Festival will take place over two days, and is to be supported and hosted by the ever popular Unity Theatre on Hope Place. It will open on Friday, April 21 at 3pm and run until 10pm on Saturday, April 22.
Over the course of the festival's run, there'll be 12 shows from a mix of established artists and companies, alongside those who are new and emerging. All the work is improvised and will encompass art forms like clowning, comedy, fooling, music, puppetry, storytelling, and theatre.
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Liverpool has a long history of developing and hosting improvised work, from Ken Campbell and Improbable theatre, to HOOF!, The Improvathon, and more. Organisers of Liverpool Improvisation Festival hope to build on this legacy.
The festival will launch in Unity Two with 'The Fly', an improvised play previously only seen in the USA. This will be followed by 'Living. Dying. Dead', a work developed by consultant Owen Scrivens and end-of-care nurse Rhiannon Jenkins, which explores grief and death through improvisation. It was last performed at the Stockholm Improvisation Festival in 2022.
There'll be plenty of work from local companies too, with homegrown company Liverpool Comedy Improv taking to the stage with a short form show named 'The Mixer'. It will include performers from improv teams from across Liverpool.
The festival will then see the world premiere of 'Trev Fleming, 42', a solo show in which Trev creates 42 individual characters in 42 minutes from suggestions from the audience.
In Unity One, the evening will open with the Chortle award-winning 'CSzUK', from Manchester, with their show Comedy Sportz. This family-friendly show has been running since 2001.
To close the first evening, there'll be 'The Invocation', a horror-inspired improvised play which draws inspiration from the dark and macabre.
Saturday will open with a series of workshops led by Emma Bird, Aisling Leyne, Mark Smith, Jess Napthine-Hodgkinson and Joanne Tremarco. The Rubbish Shakespeare company is then sure to delight fans with family-friendly show, 'The Incomplete Works of Shakespeare', a co-production with Wing it Impro.
The final day of the festival will continue with Glossop Improv's short form, games-based improv show, 'Short and Sweet', followed by another world premiere, 'Talk to the Hand', an improvised puppetry show created by Wing it Impro.
Local Liverpool favourites, Atom Improv, will then perform their show, 'Proper Job', which will be followed by the award-winning 'fool', Joanne Tremarco, in her solo show, 'Women that W***'. This work has been performed all over the world and garnered numerous five star reviews.
The festival will close with one final episode of Casino Improv and their horror-inspired show, 'The Invocation'. For more information about Liverpool Improvisation Festival, click here. To book tickets, click here.
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