Origins

Curious about how we got started? Then read on...

Rob, our founder, grew up watching standup shows like Live At The Apollo and sitcoms like Friends and thought that comedy looked like the best job in the world - but one for people with connections who lived in places like London and LA, not Grimsby. He was always the class clown, using any presentation as an opportunity to try and make his friends laugh. He was normally successful, even going so far as to win the school's student election off the back of a ten minute comedy speech in front of 400 students, much to the disgruntlement of the teachers (democracy manifest!). He now looks back at that speech and considers it his first stand up set. However, his elation would be short lived as the next day his friend had the bright idea that he should repeat the speech word-for-word to her mother, at which point he got another comedy first: that of his first bomb. The lesson? Know your audience.

By his early 20s, he found himself unemployed, living in student accommodation in London having unofficially dropped out of uni for the second time. He reads about a Silicon Valley meal replacement startup and figures he can save money living off a homebrew version of protein powder, maltodextrin and vitamin tablets. He spends the savings on a haul of comedy books, locks himself away and does nothing but read, watch shows and write, only leaving his room once a week to buy milk for his ghetto shakes. A month later, he has read 30 books, watched countless classic sitcoms, and has a standup set. Surprisingly, he cannot recall having any irregular bowel movements.

Unbelievably, he lands a job in a coffee shop based on a joke cover letter. He spends the next 90 days walking across London watching a different free comedy show each night as preparation for performing himself. He sees improv for the first time and is amazed by acts like Shoot From The Hip, The Maydays and Austentatious. He signs up for an improv lesson and loves it. It will be ten years before he does another. He is fired from the coffee shop and returns home to Grimsby. It is probably for the best as the coffee was giving him irregular bowel movements.

Fast forward to his late twenties. He is broke. Various jobs have not worked out. Old friends have long moved on with their lives. He has no career and is working as a pool lifeguard. He has a reputation at work as a weirdo an eccentric who carries a notebook and pen with him at all times in which he scribbles down jokes. To be fair, this reputation is not without merit as his chosen method for transporting said stationery is on the belt of a bumbag, alongside a water bottle and multitool. He would love to say this poundshop utility belt was giving Baywatch Batman but in reality it was Paul Blart Changing Stall Cop. However he is proud that under his patrols, control of the Meridian Leisure Centre pirate ship slide never once fell into the hands of Harvey Two Face, nor to any roaming gangs of eight year olds despite their best efforts to engage him in foam noodle warfare and distract him with tactical pool poos.

He is still in Grimsby, where there are no comedy open mics. All these years he has continued writing, but has yet to perform. He is depressed and needs radical change. He decides to quit his job and starts making preparations to live out of his car - he figures it's the only way he'll be able to pursue this dream. He books his first gig then, the night before he is due to take to the stage, Boris Johnson announces the UK's first lockdown. Not the greatest of timing.

He turns 30 during the pandemic. He manages to get a 'proper job' but is miserable. He tries to keep his mood up with exercise but it no longer works. He is isolated, begins drinking heavily and barely leaves the house. He really is not sure he wants to be alive anymore.

A relative dies and he inherits enough money for a deposit on a flat. And so now he has a choice to make. Buy somewhere and stay, or sell everything and leave. The government announces a new trade deal with Australia that extends the eligibility age of working holiday visas from 30 to 35. He googles where in Australia is best for comedy. A reddit post says Melbourne. Doing no other research, he sells everything he owns and books a flight.

He touches down in the middle of December. He spends that first month walking around getting sunburnt, being a moaning pom and trying to find somewhere, anywhere, just one place, where he can satisfy an inexplicable craving for pie and mash. All the open mics have shut for the holiday season but there is somewhere still open: an improv theatre. He goes in. He enjoys it, but he is so deeply unhappy that he struggles to laugh. He accidentally spends two hours on New Years Eve walking around a graveyard and pondering his own mortality after misidentifying it as a park on Google Maps.

January 2024 - ten years on from his uni room shut-in. He keeps going back to the improv theatre. He starts laughing again. He remembers the class he took back in London. He came over to do stand up, but he instinctively feels that this is what he needs. He takes a trial class and signs up for lessons.

The same theatre runs a night called Script Jam for pre-written material. He shows up and asks for a spot. Someone drops out so they do. He goes up. He is so nervous his hand shakes uncontrollably as he tries to read his set from A4 paper. He tells them about his NYE misadventure, gets laughs and begins to relax. He is meant to be doing a five minute spot. The runner sees him having the time of his life and is kind enough to let him go for twenty.

He continues to go to improv lessons. He is terrible to begin with, but he cannot get enough. He keeps doing standup, but quickly finds his life taken over by improv. He signs up for lessons at a second school, quickly followed by sketch classes at both.

He lands an internship at the theatre during Melbourne International Comedy Festival. His festival pass lets him watch everything for free so he spends the nights he is not working cramming in as many shows as possible. Gaulier graduates make up a disproportionate amount of his favourites so he signs up for clown lessons too.

He asks to stay on at the theatre indefinitely. They agree. He takes every shift they have available, reads every book in their library, and learns how to make people laugh from behind the tech desk. He buys more books. He does drop-in workshops with yet another school and even more lessons still with independent teachers. He dedicates every moment he has to comedy. He gets good at it. He sobers up. He performs. He finds a community. He contributes to it. And, eventually, he starts to enjoy life again - especially after finding a place that serves pie and mash.

But like delicious pie, all good things must come to an end. He has been doing all this whilst living in a hostel (he can tell you some stories) and finds both himself and his bank account exhausted. And so he decides to come home.

Rob finds that back in Grimsby, not much has changed - but he is very different. And this time, he will not wait another ten years to do improv again. And so, after many months of blood, sweat, tears and being forced by the government to pay £52 just to legally keep a mailing list, The Improv Chippy was born.