Improverts

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The Improverts are a long-running improvisational comedy troupe primarily performing out of the Bedlam Theatre, Edinburgh. They are currently performing for their eighteenth year at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where they perform every night of the fringe, except Sundays, at half past midnight from Bedlam Theatre (venue 49).

1 History
2 Notable alumni of the Improverts
3 External links
4 References

[edit] History

The troupe now known as The Improverts was founded in Edinburgh in 1989 by Canadian-born Toph Marshall^[1]. He named it Theatresports after the form of competitive improvisation developed by director Keith Johnstone in Calgary, Canada in 1976. As the show grew in popularity the name was changed, during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, (for copyright reasons) to Impro-Vegetables and then finally, in the 90s, to The Improverts. The Improverts was adopted as a permanent, year-round name from September 1997 onwards.^[2]

Since the show's inception it has kept the Bedlam Theatre as its primary performance space, running weekly during Edinburgh University's term time and then at the Edinburgh Fringe. Each year new players are recruited largely, though not exclusively, from the student population. The troupe provides free weekly workshops in improvisation for the general public in order to attract new talent to the group. ^[3]

Carrying on the teachings of Keith Johnstone, the show's format has twisted and changed over time, but stayed within the short-form sketch mould made famous by TV's Whose Line is it Anyway?.