29 APRIL 2026

Hello.

Firstly, I want to apologise to all the people who wrote to me over the past three weeks. The way replies are handled by Buttondown changed and I didn’t realise. Everything should be back to normal now, click reply and it’ll go straight to my inbox again. Why not test it out right now?

Secondly, we have Anděl Sudik coming to teach for us. This is the BEST news, Liam and I are HUGE fans of Anděl, both as a performer and an instructor - there’s simply no one like her for getting your improv to the next level. If you’d like a bit of that improv magic - scroll down to the Spotlight section to reserve your place on her workshop.

Rule of three

[Improv] Galaxicle Implosions
A couple of years ago, I was part of this hugely ambitious improv show set in virtual reality. The level of talent, artistic vision and sheer indomitable willpower it took to drag this thing into existence was phenomenal. Fred Deakin was the man at its centre and I watched him move heaven and earth to make it happen, meanwhile I happily bimbled around playing a tiny pink squid alien called Biscuit. I recently re-discovered a lovely documentary about the whole process.

[Game] ElecHead
A few weeks ago, I completed the retro platform puzzler, Öoo. I liked it so much, I sought out everything else the tiny development team had produced. This led me to ElecHead, another retro platform puzzler of similar joyful simplicity. You play a robot with a battery for a head. Every time you step on a metal platform, you power everything attached to it - lifts, spikes, trapdoors and all the other deadly gubbins that tend to populate these kind of games. As soon as you break the circuit (by jumping), everything stops moving. Unique & fiendish puzzles abound, and that’s before you discover you can throw your own head.

[Article] Noah Hawley vs Billionaires
I think Noah Hawley makes brilliant television. This is a funny and incisive piece about what happened when he got an invite to Jeff Bezos’ private ideas festival thing. Sample text:

When you can buy your way out of any mistake, when you can fire anyone who disagrees with you, when your social circle consists entirely of people who need something from you, the basic mechanism by which humans learn that other people are real goes dark.

Spotlight

This one’s a bit special.

Pretend pal and all-round superstar Anděl Sudik is coming to London, and we’ve got a few chances to get her into your brain, your scenes, and possibly your emotional core.

Content Dictates Form: An Improv Playground
Sunday 17th May 2026
11am–5pm (with a lunch break)
The Cockpit Theatre, Marylebone
£120

We spend a lot of time separating improv into boxes.
Theatrical or narrative.
Comedy or drama.
Short form or long form.

Anděl’s take: What if the good stuff lives in the overlap?

This workshop is about smashing those binaries. Letting content lead. Letting impulses in. Playing at the edge and trusting something better will show up.

Expect a mix of depth, play, mess, precision, and surprise.

https://buytickets.at/pretend/2179135

Then: See her perform

The Library of Forgotten Books
Friday 15th May
Part of a Pretend Night Jam
Theatre Deli
£5

A two-person show with Rebecca Macmillan that’s equal parts ritual, mischief, and storytelling.

Audience members bring a book they’re ready to part with forever. Those books get explored, transformed, maybe even destroyed, in the name of improv.

It’s funny, strange, a bit moving, and very much in that sweet spot of theatrical improv we know you love.

Stick around after and you can jump up in the jam and play too.

https://buytickets.at/pretend/2186389

And one more thing ...

Anděl will also be guesting with The Pretend Company at Big Scene Improv Festival on Thursday 14th May.

https://www.bigscene.co.uk/big-scene-2026/presentegg

If you’re someone who wants to push your improv into more theatrical, more alive, more surprising territory, this is very much your lane.

Come play!

Longform thoughts

Every time I was in a show trying to tell a story, I felt stifled - trundling along rails strung between yawning gaps of logic, the rickety edifice of the structure creaking under the weight of the required suspension of disbelief.

A suspension bridge, if you will.

Laura Benik asks How have you developed a feeling of what is needed when telling a story? And I answer in far too much detail with A list of good narrative behaviours.

Radio contact

Entranced by banana chip.