Cool Story Bro, Culprits & Interstate Mates | Brisbane Improv Festival

Surreal randomness is my comedy jam, so improvised comedy has always fascinated me. Seeing a performer pull something out of left field, particularly on the spot, is a true artform (all hail Maya Rudolph). It’s the anticipation and thrill of neither the audience nor the performers knowing what’s going to bubble up on the night that gets me. That potential for a show to have golden nuggets of hilarity as much as it could be a complete car crash. And to that watching a performer who’s completely in the zone taking the audience and their fellow performers on an unexpected comedic journey is a true artform for me.

My first introduction to improv came from the TV shows ‘Who’s Line Is It Anyway?’ and ‘Thank God You’re Here’, which pitted master improvisers and celebrity guests against each other in a range of short improvised skits and games. Cut to more recent times and I’ve been finding that most of my favourite comedians have cut their chops in improv at one of the many chapters of the improv institutions of the US, the Upright Citizen’s Brigade (UCB) or Second City. So, with all that, and just being a fan of anyone making a go of being a professional idiot, I was keen to see what the Brisbane Improv scene was all about beyond the cliché of “Yes, and …”

Short story long, I was excited to take in the two of the sessions on the second night of the inaugural Brisbane Improv Festival presented by local ‘comedy institution’ Big Fork Theatre. And by the crowds of the night, it seemed that many others in Brisbane were feeling the same.

The first show for the night was Cool Story Bro, which is billed as Big Fork Theatre’s flagship show. The premise was relatively simple – take two stellar storytellers / comedians (Jasmin Fairbairn and Aaron Pratt), get them to spin a yarn from their lives based on audience prompts (the more personal the better) and let a team of improvisers riff as randomly and widely as they can based on even the most minor parts of the story.

Scenes developed at a rapid pace and went in a multitude of strange, weird and wonderful directions, including forward and back in time, and explore the most obscure ideas. The improvisers jumped in whenever they got an idea and everyone was given a chance to play and lead. Jasmine’s love of peanut butter and disappointment in how small the containers are in Australia, unfolds as a scene of a couple’s illegal obsession with tiny anthropomorphic foods and Aarons tale of travelling in a tiny sleeper train in winter develops into a son taking his parents to school for a career day, who just happen to be living their lives while being in a fridge.

And let me tell you, those meagre descripions are in no way doing justice to the chaotic hilarity that unfurled before us.

At any time a member of the troupe was able end a scene that was losing momentum or that threatened to go too far in a dark direction by crossing in front of the performance. In spite, or perhaps because of this, there were only a few dead moments in the show, as the cast seemed to read the audience and quickly move on from ideas that started to lose steam. I was particularly impressed at the ability of the cast to let go of their own ideas if another performer gave the sign to stop the scene. There were no outward signs of an of the improvisers feeling miffed that they’d been cut short – as soon as some crossed in front of a scene, they jumped immediately into a new idea with the same gusto.

There is no way that I can do their skits justice, but the creativity, pace and randomness of ideas thrown out ensured that we were all in stitches for the majority of the show. While there were no real  standouts in the group, it was clear that some of the troupe were more seasoned performers who were able to fill the stage and take on their characters more successfully than others. Despite this, the rapid fire nature of the performance ensured the range of skills wasn’t an impediment to the overall show.

The storytellers also provided a nice addition of the improvisational antics of Big Fork Theatre. Jasmin and Aaron oozed charisma and charm and warmed us up and had has chuckling even before the improvisers took to the stage..

All in all, Cool Story Bro was a great intro to improv for a relative newbie like me and would be a good place to start if you’re keen to dip your toes into Brisbane’s improv scene or you just love your comedy with a good serving of random. Check out the Big Fork Theatre website for their next performance.

The final show of the night was the double bill of Culprits & Interstate Mates showcasing the talents of experienced improviser from Brisbane and across the country.

Jim Reynolds (L) and Rhys McCane (R) of Culprits

First up was Culprits, local improv duo Jim Reynolds and Rhys McCane, who are known for their ability to take an audience prompt and create a world and all of its characters that plays out over an extended scene. They’ve been called Brisbane’s answer to the masters of long-form improv Middleditch and Schwartz, which is mighty fine praise indeed if you’ve seen their specials on Netflix.

The audience prompt for the night was the secret shame of not doing your COVID check-in when you arrive at a venue. From just this, the scene began. A man entered a high-class restaurant and to a waiter at a high-class restaurant about booking a table for dinner to impress his girlfriend. The honour code of waiters, secret coal mining reserves, dating outside your social status, respecting the dying wish of parents, the dark leisure pursuits of the elite, and an evil boss named Hugo (geddit???) barely touches on the strange and beautiful scenes that played out before us that regularly had the audience in stitches.

The beauty of their performance was that it started out like a standard theatre piece and slowly unfurled into an epic narrative that escalated in unexpected and hilarious directions. Jim and Rhys bounced off each other effortlessly. Unlike the other improv shows I’ve seen on TV or at the festival, everything played out as one ongoing scene. Never once do they lose sight what they were creating or the momentum of the performance and actually built the tension and absurdity of the performance right up the conclusion. Their skill and creativity were well on display, developing the world in weird and wonderful ways, calling back to previous jokes multiple times over and jumping into each other’s characters at a moment’s notice.

We were promised at the beginning of the performance that everything we would see would be completely improvised. After the show, my group could barely believe it. We were so impressed by what we’d witnessed that many wondered how much of what we’d seen was scripted or rehearsed before the show. To our untrained eyes, it was too perfect and too funny to fit our meagre understanding of improvisation. And if that’s not the best compliment for Culprits, I don’t know what is.

Interstate Mates at play. Image: Big Fork Theatre

Interstate Mates ended the night with an improv jam by members of Raised by Wolves, the performance troupe of the Directors of Big Fork Theatre, with their mates from out of town, Sydney’s Kate Coates and Cale Bain from Cattle and Canberra’s Lou Maconachie from Lightbulb Improv.

Taking prompts from the audience, they riffed wildly in the way that only good improvisers can, with hillarious worlds created on the spot for us to enjoy. A highlight was an extended scene of parents who befriended their child’s partner just after they had broken up with their child, and their child’s epic quest to earn the respect of their partners. It played out like a well rehearsed skit from a sketch comedy, with the laughs coming thick and fast. Like any good improv show, my words cannot do it justice, but the scene included their child’s doctor, 15 year old boss and the title of Burger King.  

Now that I was an expert of improv after seeing three shows in row, one thing that stood out with Interstate Mates was the performance quality of everyone on stage. All performaners were experienced pros from the industry, had great stage presence, easily slipped in and out of characters and worked scenes in the best ways to explore all the possibilities of the humour. They also relied less on the surreal and random to generate laughs, often taking the humour in very relatable or very dark directions, letting jokes build and knowing when to use a callback to get the best audience response.

From the three shows tonight, it’s obviously that the improv scene is thriving in Brisbane and I look forward to taking in more shows in the near future. If you want to see our local improv stars create hilarity out of thin air, a good place to start is Big Fork Friday’s in Paddington. See you there.