The nanonanofilm Improv Comedy Podcast · Dave Heron

Interview with Ed Pithie (Dingbats Improv) - Part 1

·31 min·2 clips

Ed says Crawley had "nothing" for improv, so he set up Dingbats at the Archway Theatre in Hawley.

1. The Nano Nanofilm Improv Comedy Podcast episode is an interview with Ed Pithie about his improv journey and Dingbats. 2. Dave Herron hosts, and Ed Pithie is the guest whose university and teaching experience matter to the discussion. 3. The episode asks how Ed started improv, what challenged him, and how he found a style that fit his work. 4. Ed says youth theatre led him into improv because he was "not very good at sports" and went to drama classes instead. 5. He studied drama and film studies at the University of Kent in Canterbury and auditioned for the improv team in his first year. 6. The university group, Play It, did short-form improv with no coaching and performed to "some drunk students" on Thursday nights. 7. Ed says nobody in the group had improv training, so they learned by doing the games and seeing what worked or failed. 8. He says student audiences liked "smutty stuff" and "funny voices," which rewarded material he later decided not to rely on. 9. Ed describes performing in Mungo's bar and later taking scenes to Hoopla nights in London, where the same material landed differently. 10. He says Dan South brought in the UCB's ASCAT 3000 and that seeing it changed his focus toward long-form improv. 11. Ed says the biggest challenge early on was learning to judge scenes without understanding terms like "yes and" or internal coaching. 12. He says he learned from experience, especially when a scene was driven by one person "steamrolled" the rest of the team. 13. He says groups with stronger improvisers, including people like Dan South, Tom Jacob Ewels, and Liam Brennan, pushed him to improve. 14. Ed compares that pressure to playing tennis against a better opponent rather than an easier one. 15. After university, he returned to Crawley and found "nothing" in terms of improv, so he took workshops with Lucy Fennell in Bleen and Steve Rowe. 16. He says Maydays retreats and Hoopla sessions helped, but travel costs pushed him to create Dingbats locally at the Archway Theatre in Hawley. 17. Dave and Ed spend time on style, and Ed says he wants scenes that are grounded, weird, and driven by the goal of making each other laugh. 18. The tone stays loose and conversational, with jokes about a lava lamp, a ball pit, and being "at your house" over cups of tea. 19. Listeners who like improv craft, group dynamics, and style debates will get a lot from this. 20. Listeners wanting a tight comedy showcase with no process talk may skip it.

As heard by us

A warm, practical improv chat that treats the messy work of making scenes and communities as part of the craft.

Dave Herron uses the conversation with Ed to surface how improv actually gets made: the teaching, the rehearsals, and the stop-start learning that shapes a group over time.

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Why you'd press play

Press play for a friendly, unvarnished chat about building improv from the ground up.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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