Unlocking Talent, Creating Opportunity, Building Community.
Fat Penguin Improvised Comedy is a longform comedy school based in Birmingham which holds residence at the incredible Patrick Kavanagh Pub in Moseley, Loki wines in Birmingham City Centre and Highbury in Stirchley.
To teach a comedy course we need to know what comedy is. Comedy is the intention to make people laugh, and laughter is an involuntarily reaction to external stimuli. If I put my hand on a hot frying pan I would immediately pull my hand away again, involuntarily, its not a choice - in a sense 'I' didn't pull my hand away. Babies laugh before they learn to speak, other primates laugh, laughter is not about language. There are mechanisms in our brains that are beyond our control. We can of course replicate laughter and force ourselves to laugh, but we don't want our audience to do that. When a laugh happens involuntarily it is an opportunity to learn something about ourselves, there is truth in comedy.
In our courses we will teach you how to create real, involuntary laughter from our audience, and give you the authentic confidence to enjoy doing it.
Whatever your reasons for joining us, the intensives that make up our syllabus will teach you all of the skills that you will need to unlock your talents and perform rich improvised comedy, effortlessly on stage. When you sign up to one of our workshops you are joining a huge community of people on the same path as you, and as well as encouraging you to audition with us, we are also committed to helping our performers to network and build their own projects.
Level 1 is called our ‘strong foundations’ course, and it is where we will dig down to the bed rock of authentic communication with you. We invite you, through a series of exercises, to consider how to become self aware so that you can see what the audience can see. From here, we lay down all of the fundamental principles that create comedy, and practice them. Expect fun, expect to laugh, expect to feel much more confident in front of an audience.
Level 2 is called ‘game’, and it is where we will uncover the mechanics and patterns of laughter in depth. We evolved to laugh in response to social triggers, we uncover the reasons and explore mechanical rules that will help us to generate laughter on stage, and turn a single laugh in to lots of laughs so that you never feel stuck.
Level 3 is ‘Advanced Game and Emsemble’, where you will learn how to navigate the show, maintain a high rate of laughter and add finesse with organic openings and group games.
Level 4 is called ‘form’, and now armed with the ability to initiate and respond to game, both from a premise and organically, we now teach you the structure of creating a satisfying show. Stories are part of the way our minds are assembled, we were put together to tell stories, and there are fundamental things we should include in our stories to make them more satisfying. We will teach you a host of long form formats and look at why they work, then guide you to your own new form which your group will create, rehearse and perform. Our syllabus runs sequentially, to apply for the later levels you must have completed and passed the earlier levels or come in to meet us to discuss your options.
We also offer a drop in sessions where you can come along and have a go, meet us and meet some of the other participants.
We also host a weekly show every Thursday featuring our house team.
To find out more, check out our website:
www.fatpenguinimprov.com
Twitter:
www.twitter.com/FP_Improv
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/fatpenguinimprov/
Or message us on Facebook!
