*An occasional blog post where I feature some Up-and-Coming Genius I’m a bit jealous of. First up: actress/comedian/songstress, Olivia Mace*
Even nice people have a LIST. Of those who’ve CROSSED THEM IN THE PAST. The first on mine was a NUN. But an instant qualifier was some bastard of an Impro Teacher who made me “WOW!” in front of everyone. We had to shout “WOW!” and grin maniacally to our peers who had to point and jeer when they spotted the WOW! fading. It started in the eyes. A slow bleeding through of desperation, failure and fear, tearing open the iris like a new arsehole of SHAME.
This bastard then made us improvise funny sketches about vegetables. And he only ever laughed at the men. That was my first experience of Impro.
Then Whose Line is it Anyway came and went on telly. Now I come up against it regularly doing stand-up. Impro solo performers, impro sketch groups. Like stand-up – the good ones are amazing, the bad ones make you want to KILL YOURSELF. But the thought of bounding up onstage saying “Give me a word and I’ll make up some shit!” makes me want to kill myself MORE.
And that makes Olivia Mace angry.
Coz she does it brilliantly and is fast becoming one of the best improvisers around, not just of sketches and stuff but of SONGS. She works with Multiverse, a group like Showstoppers who improvise entire musicals. She also has her own show, BLINKFACE where she makes up songs on the spot about audience tales of embarrassment. Mace is easily up there with Josie Lawrence, Pippa Evans and one day she will be HUGE.
So. Stand-Up Virgin, scarred by Impro, cornered Olivia Mace, Queen of it, to ask HOW she got into such a RIDICULOUSLY hard and scary thing in the first place? And WHY.
OM: I got a Christmas job playing a Corporate Elf for a big banking company and their families. We got paid lots, I was a high class elf. My name was Christmas Boots and my character was a bit rubbish, dropping parcels and things. We were all improvising and the only way to get through it was to be funny.
S-UV: Fair enough. Most people would be a Corporate Anything for the right money. But to make a career out of it. Willingly.
OM: The thing is, I’d always done it. I always wanted to be a comedian but I thought Cambridge Footlights was the only way in. I loved Victoria Wood. I used to dress up as her and act out her sketches to my family. I was always improvising funny songs. By the time I asked myself “Do you want to do this?” I realised I always had been.
S-UV: Do you openly court danger?
OM: It makes me so sad when people say improvising is scary. It shouldn’t be. That’s usually because it’s been taught badly or your first experience hasn’t been good.
S-UV: Yes but it is scary! You have no script, no material and the pressure is on to be FUNNY. With people WATCHING.
OM: Having no material is the gift! It takes the heat off me. I’m the mirror, the canvas reflecting your idea.
S-UV: Ahhh. So if you’re shit, it’s OUR fault.
OM: There’s an instant camaraderie with the audience, they’re more forgiving. When you’re a stand-up, you’ve already said “I’m funny.” In improv, you’ve given them the control switch. You’ve said “You tell me what to do.” The fuck-ups are different, the audience has helped shape them, they’re part of it. In stand-up, you fucked up.
There’s a moment here where I order more wine coz she’s right and I’ve chosen the wrong profession.
ME: Yeah, but you must have shat yourself at some point. In the early pre-Elf days…
OM: Oh I’ve sweated from my ears. I also write comic sings and got a gig performing my own material. I wore leather pants to give off an air of rock n’roll with high, high heels. My backing track cut out and I didn’t know where I was in the 1st song. I tried a new one about Jeremy Corbyn called ‘Asta La Corbinista’*, which only half the audience got. In improv, if people aren’t getting it you can try a new angle. Here, people just stared in polite confusion and I just powered through an act I knew wasn’t working.
In life, I am a nervous person who won’t do heights, fairground rides or deep water coz I actually might die. I won’t die onstage. It was glorious when I did the ‘dry mouth, mute, weeing in my leather pants thing’ because after I tottered off and started to feel my own fingers again I thought “Oh I’m still here!” Now I switch off the ‘giving a shits’ and analysis, make my mind go empty and listen.
*SURELY IT’S TIME FOR THE WORLD TO HEAR THE ‘ASTA LA CORBINISTA’ SONG
S-UV: Are you bulletproof now then?
OM: I’ve never been heckled. People look at me and they don’t expect me to be funny. I’m the English rose, RP type. Then I sing a song about wanking and they think “Oh!”
S-UV: If improv is all about being in the moment, how do you prepare? Or is that an oxyMORON?
OM: I play rhyming games with myself all the time. On my hands free round London. If something comes out and it’s wrong, I don’t go back over it. I give myself permission not to be any good.
I tell Liv about the King Gong night where the guy bounded onstage with a guitar saying “Give me a word and I’ll make up a song about it!” Whereupon the audience told him to “FUCK OFF”
S-UV: Your show, Blinkface is a clever wheeze. Having the audience reveal their weaknesses must level the playing field. You’re not a lone target.
Mace performs Blinkface with musical genius improv partner Yshani Perinpanayagam. Before the show, the audience is encouraged to jot down their most embarrassing moments on pieces of paper which Liv then pulls out of a box, never having read them before.
OM: We never even thought about that. We wanted everyone to be ok with awkward moments. I found that interesting, unifying to explore. You always win if you make it about the audience. The by-product is that I don’t worry about the jokes and the rhymes as it’s all about them.
S-UV: Have you ever attempted stand-up?
OM: I can’t say I’m a comedian. What I do is something else. I don’t think I can do stand-up. Well, not yet. Maybe in a couple of years. Yeah, in a couple of years I will.
CONCLUSION: DOING SCARY IMPRO MAKES YOU FEARLESS.
Still not doing it.
Lizzie Hopley 