16:00 Check-in
16:30
17:00 New BIPper welcome session
17:30
18:00 Dinner
18:30
19:00 Intros and Warmups in Howden
19:30
20:00
20:30
21:00
21:30
22:00
22:30
23:00 End of programming
07:00 Breakfast
07:30
08:00
08:30 Pick workshops in Howden
09:00
09:30
10:00
10:30 Mid-morning coffee break
11:00
11:30
12:00
12:30 Lunch
13:00
13:30
14:00
14:30
15:00 Group Photo
15:30 Free time
16:00
16:30
17:00
17:30
18:00 Dinner
18:30
19:00
19:30
20:00
20:30
21:00
21:30
22:00 End of programming — bar remains open until 23:00!
07:00 Breakfast
07:30
08:00
08:30 Pick workshops in Howden
09:00
09:30
10:00
10:30 Mid-morning coffee break
11:00
11:30
12:00
12:30 Lunch
13:00
13:30 Thank yous and goodbyes

BIP Digital Programme

Welcome to the BIP digital timetable! This site has useful information about the event and an interactive timetable where you can favourite workshops to help plan your weekend.

It would take months and cost hundreds of pounds to make this site into an app on the iOS App Store and the Google Play stores, but you can download it as an app onto your phone right here! Just open the options/sharing menu for this tab and hit "Add to Home Screen" or "Install app".

Workshop Session 1

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Workshop Session 2

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Workshop Session 3

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Workshop Session 4

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Workshop Session 5

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Workshop Session 6

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Friday Entertainment

On Friday night, we’re reviving an old BIP tradition with a Teacher Showcase, giving each teacher a chance to show off their workshop with a short scene or quick interview. This is a great chance to get a taste of what’s on offer and plan your schedule for the weekend.

After the interval on Friday, we’ll see a Living Room courtesy of a BIP supergroup who assembled at the last event!

Saturday Entertainment

On Saturday, we have a lineup built from teams who put themselves forward when they signed up to attend.

A Musical Scratch Team of 8 has been assembled from 30 people who put themselves forward. They will rehearse in Howden on Saturday afternoon at some time during the break, with coaching from Tom Hodge.

All the way from Crawley, Three Placebos (all four of them!?) take a word from the audience and use it to inspire a series of scenes, creating an innovative and playful montage.

After the interval, inspired by a Swedish flat-pack company who will not be named for legal reasons, Manchester-based team Skünkhaus will put together a full story based on your suggestion.

Rounding out Saturday night, we’ll have another BIP tradition: the classic Cellblock Tango.

Instant Characters using Body and Voice

We will explore and expand our physical and vocal repertoire through fun, playful interactive exercises and scenes. Then we'll play with the characters, using short form games, providing brief feedback and plenty of praise afterwards. Expect to be active throughout the workshop!

Emma Willmer

Emma Willmer

I've been teaching and performing improvised dance, psychodrama and, mostly, comedy improv for too long to say! I love the spirit of play and interaction in improv, and I believe when we clear out the cobwebs & static, we're all capable of great and funny things!

Fun with Jung!

In this dynamic workshop we will dive into Carl Jung's archetypes and discover how they can enrich our characters. Through guided exercises, we’ll explore classic archetypes like the Hero, Shadow, and Trickster, and learn how to embody their traits in improvisational scenes. This workshop will help you tap into universal patterns of human behaviour, enhancing emotional depth, motivations, and authenticity in your performances. No matter your level of improvising this session offers fresh inspiration for character creation.

Jennifer Bagnall

Jennifer Bagnall

Jennifer began improvising in early 2020, quickly adapting to the online scene during the global shift in live performance. Based in Manchester, she is a member of Improv on Demand (short form) and SkünkHaus (narrative long form) and is one of the founders of Jens and Frens, a group originally formed for the Women in Comedy Festival in 2023. What began as a festival team has since grown into a vibrant community in the Northwest, fostering connections across skill levels and creating performance opportunities new improvisers looking to increase their stage time. Jennifer is passionate about fostering creativity and collaboration and regularly brings new approaches to her improv teams.

Lego Goats

Goat Lego figures aren't always easy to find even though they look pretty basic, enthusiasts love them. Sometimes we don't know how important the basics are and we disregard them however without them, we're a bit like a farm without its goat.

This workshop shines a light not only on the importance but on the beauty of the basics. The workshop has endless possibilities and will be build bespoke for each group based on the list of basics we compile together!!

Jen Hardy

Jen Hardy

Hailing from the North West of England, I'm an improviser, poet, teacher and coach as well as being Project Producer at Shakespeare North Theatre. I've performed in all-female comedy troupes and Liverpool's first UCB style team. I perform with multiple companies including Playing Dead Theatre and Rubbish Shakespeare in their sell out 5 star improvised show, The Incomplete Works of Shakespeare. I also created a fully improvised family show and continue to develop shows and formats both for myself and as a coach and director for others.

A trained teacher, I teach and coach across the country and internationally. This has included international festivals and teams who've gone on to perform at international festivals and individuals who've gone on to carve out professional careers.

As the co-director of the Liverpool Improvisation Festival, I'm passionate about exploring improvisation in all forms, and supporting communities to perform and learn new ways to be spontaneous.

Play It Forward! A solution-focused approach

Expect a playful, stress busting and personal development style workshop — with an invitation to explore where you are now, where you wanna be and how you can get there!

Using basic playback theatre forms as our carrier, we will get to explore a light-hearted short journey, combined with a solution focused approach where players will get to step into and witness desired outcomes with intentions played out in front of their eyes!

A cathartic, playful and uplifting workshop, using group games and pairs to give you a taste of...

  • Playback principles
  • A solution-focused approach
  • A set intention to take away with you
...all wrapped up in a bow 😊

Disclaimer: no actual bows provided 😉

Emma Boddy

Emma Boddy

Emma knew she was on to something the first time she ran an improv workshop for a women's group at Mind mental health charity 11 years ago...

Having already caught the Improv bug way back when, in her job as a Recovery worker at the time she was asked to facilitate and run a women's group, she asked the clients what they wanted to do and they mentioned 'drama'. She didn't have 'drama' exp. as such, but certainly Improv!

She knew first hand what incredible mood boosting benefits improv could supply and introduced it to the weekly group They loved it! She observed how this was one of the few times clients would laugh and let go for a while.

In this period she went on to train more deeply in short and long Improv, Playback theatre and The Meisner technique; getting involved in troops, performances, plays and short films.

She went on to teach on a regular basis for acting and improv classes as special guest, gained her core training and conductors training in Playback back in 2015.

Over the years she combined Improv with coaching, allowing people to explore and play with desired outcomes: where are you now? where do you want to be? and how you gonna get there?

Incorporating her Personal performance Coaching, NLP and solution focused hypnotherapy background to give participants permission to play, let go and come away feeling lifted with a new perspective!

To date has seen her working with many mental health charities such as Mind, Off The Record, Devon Partnership Trusts, Universities and wellbeing festivals around the UK — Buddha Fields and Into the Wild etc — sharing the many benefits of improv and personal development approach!

Guessing Games

Guessing games are a staple of shortform improv shows, but they present some unique challenges and opportunities for fun. This workshop will focus on two main things; Exercises to help hone the skills used in guessing games, and some helpful tips and tricks to help keep a show that has guessing games nice and snappy.

We will close out the workshop with some opportunities to bring everything together, and to put those skills and tips into practice.

Jack Greenway

Jack Greenway

Jack is a Sheffield based improviser who has been a member of Stürike Comedy since 2016 years. He got his start in shortform improv with the University of Sheffield's The Shrimps, and eventually went on to serve as the group's artistic director, leading workshops and hosting shows. Jack has since moved into long form improv with Stürike and Work in Progress.

Three Act Stories

We'll be exploring narrative improv, using the three-act structure to tell stories with a beginning, a middle and an end. We'll use the correct ingredients to bake tall tales, such as the platform, tilt and reincorporation. We'll find out how to establish the given circumstances and foundational reality of a made-up world, creating scenes where little happens but everything counts. Then we'll look at how to break the established patterns using the techniques of confession, accusation and discovery. Finally, we'll dig into how to reuse previously established story elements to find a satisfying resolution.

Stuart Moses

Stuart Moses

Stuart Moses has taught improv for Liverpool Comedy Improv, Dogface Improv, The Sunday Alternative and the University of Reading. He is currently running improv classes in Reading, Berkshire.

Stuart is the host of the Improv London podcast, which after 160+ episodes is always about improv but only sometimes about London.

Stuart is one half of Moses and Bird, with Liverpool Comedy Improv's Emma Bird, creating emotionally authentic scenes online and in-person. He was one half of Doctor Whoprov, a duo which improvised in the universe of Doctor Who. He directed a group called Night Version, which improvised with slides and soundtracks.

He has studied with David Razowky, Joe Bill, Hoopla, The Maydays, Music Box, Dummy, Franck Buzz, The Showstoppers, and AndAlso Improv.

Plot — Just The One

People tend to contribute loads of plot ideas, and many get either left behind or we end up in crazytown, because a Bengal Tiger in a smoking jacket, doing the Times crossword and solving a clue for the answer ‘Oklahoma’ is the only way of resolving all the plot.

Why do we put in so many ideas? It is exhausting to generate the ideas, and even more exhausting to try and play them all! We only need one, so why not just play one?

We will play some scenes where there is little plot, and see what can happen when we stick with it and follow one line rather than many.

John Tapp

John has been improvising for almost 10 years, in and around Cheltenham. He regularly appears in short form shows with Comic Sans Script, where he also teaches a weekly class. He has also developed long-form shows and leads classes as part of Shatterprov.

Let's All Talk At Once

We teach beginner improvisers not to talk over each other, to take it in turns, to give space for clean dialogue. But that’s not how people speak in real life. Excited, angry or passionate people do talk over each other, finish each other’s sentences, and make exciting, interesting, messy dialogue. This workshop will give you the tools to replicate this more natural-sounding speech, helping you to listen and talk at the same time, so that you can work together to create naturalistic-sounding and highly engaging dialogue without baffling the audience as to what is going on.

Jon Trevor

Jon Trevor

Jon has been teaching and coaching improv for 15 years. He runs a weekly drop-in, workshops at all levels, and a 12-week evening class at a local arts centre. He trained at iO in Chicago, with the Maydays in the UK, with Showstopper, and with many other internationally acclaimed teachers. He founded, directs and performs with Box of Frogs, Birmingham’s longest running shortform improv troupe. He co-founded, directs, and performs with Breakfast of Champions longform group. He runs Birmingham Improv, and is the Director of the Birmingham Improv Festival.

An Improviser's Guide to Mugging

Take your laughs to a new level.

An old comedy technique, mugging is often used in improv but not so often mentioned or acknowledged. In this workshop, we’ll be using games and exercises to identify and explore mugging in some of its many guises.

You’ve almost certainly used it from time to time without even thinking about it. The simple practice of exaggerated or isolated facial and bodily expressions to punctuate scenes and heighten the comedic impact. When properly employed, it can be the key to some big laughs.

Along the way, we might discuss the fourth wall, corpsing, spit-takes & breaking character too. And you’ll get to practice this simple dynamic technique. Easy to learn, easy to use, but it can supercharge your comedy scenes.

Stags Woodward

Stags Woodward

Stags has performed stand-up for more than 16 years and been attending workshops/courses and running yearly courses containing elements of basic shortform as a tool for stand-up for well over a decade, helping multiple people take shows and perform on the Fringe.

Finally making improv his main focus in 2018 and taking several improv shows to Edinburgh for full runs, including the popular Spontadeity (mythology-based shortform), he also performs with longform troupes Breakfast of Champions, Vox Pops and previously Squares in the Round.

He's set up and run several successful improv nights, all with a very accessible and inclusive approach to elicit the best from all attendees: Derby’s weekly improv walk-in “Chewy”, Nottingham’s monthly longform workshop, “Petri Dish” and more than 100 online long-form sessions.

He brings a wealth of learning from countless courses from experts on improv, clowning, acting and stand-up which he’ll happily share and discuss while teaching.

Think First: Get Back In Your Head

We’ve all been stuck in a scene that for some reason seems to be going nowhere. You’ll often hear improvisers tell you to get out of your head, but sometimes, the best way out is through.

Get back in your head for a minute, pause for a second, check your bearings and give your imagination a moment to breathe. And heaven forbid, perhaps even plan a couple of seconds in advance of what you perform!

In this workshop, we’ll drill into and practice this approach, and by the end, when you come to those problem moments, you’ll be able to shift gear and ride off into the sunset in a far more dynamic and satisfying scene.

Josie Ettrick-Hogg

Josie Ettrick-Hogg

Josie has performed character stand-up for over twelve years, running and performing on numerous Edinburgh Fringe runs and Leicester Comedy Festival shows, and assisted in teaching a good number of stand-up courses (utilising improv exercises).

Discovering improv in 2019, since then she has co-run weekly online and in-person drop-ins in Derby, organised and hosted a set of all-female and non-binary workshops under MissImp, supported on a monthly long-form workshop, and performed improv on four full Edinburgh Fringe runs. Previously performing as part of the now disbanded Squares in the Round, Josie is currently part of Nottingham’s Vox Pops and one half of The Sisters Karazmatik.

Teaching, Transactions & Total Ignorance

Some scene openings make life much harder than it needs to be, for you and your scene partner. This workshop will focus on the most common pitfalls that, in my experience, can lead to boring scenes:

  • Teaching — an expert is teaching a novice
  • Transactions — two strangers are involved in some sort of transaction
  • Total Ignorance — at least one person has no idea what’s going on
We’ll look at why these scene openings are so difficult, and what better choices might be out there. We’ll also practice how to rescue a scene that’s fallen into one of these traps! This should be perfect for you if you sometimes find yourself uninspired before or early on in a scene, or frequently work with less experienced improvisers.

David Harvey

David Harvey

In his professional life, David is a technical trainer, heading up an academy that prepares adults for a career in software/technology. He began improvising over a decade ago as a way of making living in Birmingham more bearable (he loves it there now). Today David performs short form with Box of Frogs and long form with Breakfast of Champions. He’s weirdly proud about making people cry whilst performing in a Birmingham Improv Maestro. This BIP will be his workshop-leading debut.

When NLP Meets Improv

This workshop will be an introduction to NLP and how it can enhance improvisation skills even more by using specific rapport building skills. In particular I will teach how to use our senses to communicate, storytell and to translate. This will teach participants active listening, specificity, failure, focus, emotion. This will be a lot of fun, some group exercises, some games to practice your new skills and finishing with a group story.

June O'Driscoll

June O'Driscoll

I have being playing with improv for over 2 years and have been using it in my work from the start. (I am an NLP and Coach Trainer and have been for the last 18 years, working in both the UK and USA). I have been teaching improv for the last 18 months to International NLP Trainers, Practitioners and Coaches both online and face to face. I have been taught predominantly at Dingbats by Ed Pithie and do regular jams with them. I have also been taught by Dave Heron, Jon Misler, George Butcher, Chris Mead, Maria Peters and Vinny Francois. I regularly perform with 3 Placebos at Dingbats and have performed with them at Hoopla, Scoops, Shoreditch Balls. I also perform with Miss Behaviour.

Fruits & Roots

This workshop aims at helping you learn and develop theory & performance skills, particularly for two-person scenes and long form. The focus will be on the two main distinctive parts of a scene: the details, objects, words, and thinking (Fruit); and the characters, relationships, and emotions (Roots).

You will learn, primarily through exercises and minimal theory, the difference between the Fruits and Roots of a scene, and how to focus on each depending on:

  • your own skillset — what your strengths are and what you need to improve upon
  • the context of the scene — who, what, where, when
  • what's already been provided — what's happened, why, and what's missing.

Prerequisites: You already know the basics of improv, scene work, and two-person scenes.

Yiovi Derpsch

Yiovi Derpsch

Yiovi loves improv and teaching, always aiming at fostering a supportive, playful, and creative learning environment for everyone. She has taught at BIP before (May 2023) and currently teaches improvisational skills to drama students at the University of East Anglia (where she’s also a lecturer in psychology). Her improv journey has been shaped by brilliantly supportive mentors at LCI, The Maydays, Second City, and the summer intensives at Chicago’s iO and Annoyance Theatres.

The Comedy of Improv

Being able to identify comedic devices as they're playing out can be invaluable for making strong contributions to a game or scene. That awareness allows us to be more intentional about the "comedy" part of our improv comedy.

In this workshop, we'll be diving into some games to help us understand the comedic devices in play, and how we might utilise these devices in our scenes.

Eji Osigwe

Eji Osigwe

Eji is the founder of ImproQuo, a comedy theatre company based in Manchester, and a long-time performing artist. He has years of experience in comedy improvisation, including performing in shows, coaching teams, and directing and running live improv productions.

Eji has also appeared as a regular on BBC Radio Manchester, hosted the main stage at the Festival of Manchester and performed stand-up all around England.

Warmup to the Weekend

You’ve just arrived at BIP. You’re excited, but maybe had a long day travelling to Stafford and you’re just not ready to dive into anything too complicated. Or maybe you’ve not done a lot of improv before and are just looking for a friendly crowd of people to get to know. If that sounds like you then come along! This workshop will be filled with fun warmup games, some exercises to engage your improv brain and maybe a game or zombie penguin or two.

Wei Joo Ooi

Wei Joo Ooi

Wei Joo can’t remember when he first started improvising, but he can remember leading his first workshop in 2012. Amidst the chaos, people seemed to have fun! He then started improvising regularly in Reading in 2015 when he started attending What's the Game Improv classes, performing as part of the house troupe, and became a founding member of the Free Radicals science based improv troupe. More recently he has co-founded the longform group Imagination Superhighway, debuting at the Hoopla Improv Marathon with our Choose Your Own Adventure format, and horror based group The Choir.

Wei Joo is probably best known for his grounded, emotionally led improv. Rather than aiming at the funny bone, Wei Joo likes to try to tug at heartstrings. Paradoxically though, he also loves to play camp, over the top characters that are larger than life.

Basic Music

Shake off the cobwebs, blow away the brain fog and bring the music back. This music workshop is open to beginners and anyone who has not been able to fulfil their favourite pastime of musical improv for far too long and wishes to rediscover the joy in a safe environment. We'll focus on feeling the rhythm and feeling the rhymes. So get on up, it's music time.

Tom Hodge

Tom Hodge

In an improv career spanning well over a decade, Tom is proud to have worked with many of the top acts and performers in the country. As well as being a regular performer with The Dragprov Revue and Music Box, he's enjoyed the occasional jaunt with a few internationally renowned celebrity improvisers (Colin Mochrie, Mike McShane, Josie Lawrence, Marcus Brigstocke, and most recently a brief European tour with Paul Merton and his Impro Chums). He looks forward to what the following decades may bring.

Advanced Music

An opportunity for more experienced improv singers to try something a little more complicated, a new format, or a new technique. Full details will be revealed at the workshop pitches!

Tom Hodge

Tom Hodge

In an improv career spanning well over a decade, Tom is proud to have worked with many of the top acts and performers in the country. As well as being a regular performer with The Dragprov Revue and Music Box, he's enjoyed the occasional jaunt with a few internationally renowned celebrity improvisers (Colin Mochrie, Mike McShane, Josie Lawrence, Marcus Brigstocke, and most recently a brief European tour with Paul Merton and his Impro Chums). He looks forward to what the following decades may bring.

Scenes Only Jam

On the short-form side, The Scenes Only Jam allows you to pick who you want to perform with and show off your scene-work abilities.

James Cannon

James Cannon

James has been improvising for the past 11 years in Sheffield, York and Leamington. James took up improv as a student in Sheffield, falling in love with the short form format. James set up his own short form comedy community, Leamprov, in Leamington Spa, where he teaches weekly workshops and runs monthly Jams. James loves exploring different improv styles and bringing them to the workshops. Leamprov have recently celebrated their fifth birthday and put on regular shows in the town and performed as part of the Edinburgh Fringe this year.

Shortform Games Jam

Does what it says on the tin. Draw names from a hat, bring people up to play games, whether quickfire, scenic, guessing, musical, or any other style you can think of!

Matt Watson Jones

Matt Watson Jones

Matt Watson Jones has been improvising since 2004 and teaching improv since 2011, but you might not have heard of him since he's been mostly doing it in Barcelona, Spain. Co-Founder of the Barcelona Improv Group and Watch This Space Improv, he also co-ran the BIG International Festival (BIG IF) for the first four years. He now runs jams and classes with Giant Leap Improv in neighbouring Shropshire.

Armando Jam

The Armando is a montage, inspired by an improvised monlogue. One player takes a one-word prompt and recounts a story from their life about whatever that word inspires. The cast create a series of premise-based scenes inspired by that story.

Ben Wong

Ben Wong

Ben entered the improv circle 8 years ago in Hong Kong. He moved to Manchester 2.5 years ago and has been continuing the improv journey, joining local troupe Improv On Demand and performing with them in Manchester and in the Edinburgh Fringe. He is also very keen to contribute to the improv community and passionate to help promote the growth within it.

Musical Montage Jam

The Musical Montage Jam is a chance for those who love singing & scene-work to jam and show off their skills with a variety of musical games and scenes involving music and song.

Tom Keegan

Tom has been in the improv community for almost a decade, and is currently based in Somerset. After being cast in a musical improv team at the Bristol Improv Theatre, they discovered a love for combining improv and song. Although the group later disbanded, Tom continues to seek out any opportunities and fellow improv-singers to perform with. More recently they have been studying Collaborative Vocal Improvisation, as popularised by artists like Bobby McFerrin.

La Ronde Jam

Where a Slacker is “Follow the Leaver”, a La Ronde stays in place as a bunch of characters come and go. A location inspires a series of scenes connected by character relationships. At each scene change, the character who has been on longest leaves and a new one enters, with the last scene featuring the return of the first character to leave at the start to create a ‘ronde’.

Edd Crawley

Edd Crawley

Improvising for around 8 years, and on his [REDACTED] BIP, Edd’s been around for a little while and has only really learned how much there is to learn.

Coming from Sheffield, Edd learned at The Shrimps, then moved into Stürike, where he loved to have really grounded scenes with kind partners that swerve towards crazy town!

Edd’s looking forward to seeing the most beautiful improv at this BIP, and facilitating a jam!

Slacker Jam

Also known as “Follow the Leaver”, a Slacker starts with a simple two-person scene, but whenever (whenever!) a character leaves a scene, the scene ends and we follow that character into a new scene elsewhere in the world. This can get silly.

Terje Brevik

Terje Brevik

Terje Brevik is a professional teacher and performer of improvisational theater from Oslo, Norway.

He is the founder of Tøyen Impro, an improv school for everyone, and the Short Notice Improv Festival, a week long international festival complete with workshops, shows and a Big Day Out!

He comes with over 10 years of experience teaching and performing internationally in the USA, UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Latvia, Estonia, Russia, Sweden and Denmark.

Terje holds two Bachelor's degrees, one in Drama and Theater Communication, the other in Computer Engineering.

He already regrets ending this sentence with casket window ninja turtle.

Travel Guidance

Venue Info

Welfare

Alex, Bobby, Carly, Jen, Jen, Jo and Matt are your Welfare team for this BIP weekend. We're here for you to talk to if you have any concerns or issues with anything at BIP, or if you just fancy a chat. Come and find us at any point over the weekend — we'll be the ones wearing pink BIP shirts. If you want to raise a concern without talking to us, you can leave a message in the welfare box at main reception.

To report an urgent incident, please find one of us. If you cannot find someone in person, call Alex on 0751 772 3666 or Jo on 0797 327 8052.

When you report an incident, there is no required information and we will respect any requests for privacy. However, the more information we have to act on and potentially relay to others where necessary, the better we will be equipped to solve any immediate or ongoing problems and make things better in the future.

Useful Contacts

If you need to get hold of someone during the weekend, you can contact the list below. Unless it's an emergency, a text or WhatsApp message is preferred when contacting an individual.