Who

Found originally in a showing of “Summer Holiday” aged 11, Ebe had two whole lines!

Very quickly (i.e. ~9 years later) they decided am-dram probably wasn’t the world for them. However, they still yearn for the feeling of stage life, without having to do all that nasty boring stuff like learning lines or being a reliable actor… so improv suits them well!

Ebe grew up listening to “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue”, and “Just A Minute” and watching “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”. They nowadays spend their time playing D&D, gaming with friends and family, and crocheting like a metaphorical demon. With pastimes like that, there was never really any hope they wouldn’t eventually be swept up by the improv river. Ebe now clings to the metaphorical floating logs of CHIMPS and Flintshire Funnybone, and has recently been caught in the current of the metaphysical waterfall that is the Oickers.

Hi, I’m Kate and my improv journey began with curiosity and escalated into fearless (and often fearful) commitment, joyful nonsense, and learning that confidence is just enthusiasm with eye contact.

I began improv life with Emma Bird and the Liverpool Comedy Improv short form training and have dipped my long curly toes into long form / musical improv and clowning. 

I am beyond excited to join the iconic Oikers Improv troupe — a group I’ve admired for a long time and am now honoured to jump into the chaos with. Expect bold choices, big energy, and absolutely no regrets (until after the show).

Hi folks, my name is San and here is my improv ‘journey’.

Growing up I always liked to entertain people and make people laugh, but never really explored the entertainment world as football was my big passion both watching and playing. But as my football playing days came to an end I was lost for many years searching for something I could be part of. I was always part of a team so struggled to find something to stimulate me, my mental health suffered and I was left with a massive  void in my my life and I didn’t know how to fill it. 

Then I found a place in Liverpool called the Life Rooms. Here I started a course on stand-up comedy. It was going rather, well then the glorious pandemic hit us. The courses transferred to Zoom but not stand-up comedy. There was however one on finding confidence through drama. I will give it a go, I thought but I can’t see me liking it. 

Fast forward a few weeks and I found myself saying what is this magical spellbinding art form that has captured my inner child and has made me feel alive again. Turns out it was improv. I found it came naturally to me. Where had it been all my life! The facilitator Rebecca introduced me to LCI and Emma Bird and the rest, as they say, is history. 

The Oickers formed during a separate LCI course to me and I watched a few of their shows with a little bit of envy! So, I was ecstatic and amazed when they asked me to be part of their amazing troupe. Since then my confidence has gone from strength to strength. I have gone on to do projects with other companies, such as Paperwork Theatre, Glossop Improv and more recently Collective Encounters. Nothing on a big scale but to me they are everything and keep me motivated and stimulated. Performing improv and drama stops me from fall back into that great big hole that I fell into and fought so many years to get back out.

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Michael is a 63-year-old silly person who is very fond of the word, ‘jamboree’.

A member of Liverpool Comedy Improv since 1380, Michael has only recently been allowed to take part in improvised scenes on the understanding that he refrains from biting himself (unless integral to the scene).

Recently, Michael abandoned his efforts at stand-up comedy because audiences kept laughing at him.

He says: “I wish for a world where improv is everywhere. Where man and beast can live side-by-side ‘yes anding’ each other, and where cake and jellies are always free.”

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I have always loved the theatre and the arts, with both myself and my two daughters being regular visitors to the theatre from them being a young age. After going to see a couple of plays at the Unity theatre to see a brilliant theatre company performing whole improvised plays, I was totally awestruck by that idea.

So, when in 2016 my youngest daughter who had recently moved to Birmingham and joined an improv group there, took me to see an improv showcase I became hooked. Then – I saw a facebook page about improv classes at Merseyside Academy of Drama in Liverpool, run by Emma Bird, how would I resist? I joined my first class in September 2018 and have never looked back. Improv is so much fun, challenging and scary at the same time. I later went on to do some improv drop-in classes with Liverpool Comedy Improv and learned so much from them. I particularly love any chance to dress up and play a comedy character. This became a very useful skill in some of my other acting classes, monologues and a play I have also done with MAD.

Having been plucked from the obscurity of St Helens and then later Wavertree, Liverpool but having no formal acting training, I feel greatly privileged to be part of the wonderful fruit bowl of talent which makes up The Oickers. I hope to have many more fun and fruit-based adventures with you all!

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Originally having a background in amateur dramatics, I have always had the desire to perform, especially through my time spent with Wirral based theatre companies.

I have always loved comedy in all its forms, and it wasn’t until 2015/2016 when I had the opportunity to attend a comedy improv show, hosted by none other than Emma Bird. There had been an advertisement for The Liverpool Comedy Improv drop-in classes every Monday night over in Liverpool and I seized the opportunity and I never looked back.

I have had the chance to perform not only live, but also online, as well as with such talented performers – and joining with my fellow Oickers, I’m excited for the future.

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I’ve been performing in one way or another for most of my life as a voice actor, writer and primary school teacher, but it wasn’t until 2020 that I found my true home on an improv stage.

After an entirely sensible and not at all excessive binge of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, I discovered that improvised comedy actually existed near me. One message to Liverpool Comedy Improv later, I turned up in Chester and promptly fell in love with the art of making things up in public.

Since then, I’ve performed in person and online with improvisers from across the UK and beyond. In 2021, I launched the Liverpool Comedy ImprovCast, a weekly podcast chatting to improvisers about creativity, chaos and everything in between.

I have a deep and possibly unnecessary love of puns, which led me to write The Pundamentals: A Guide to Puns from the Improv Stage to the Page, a book dedicated to the craft, structure and joyful silliness of wordplay.

I also co-run Flintshire Funnybone Improv with my wife and fellow Oicker, Sekki Tabasuares. We host sessions at Caffi Isa in Mynydd Isa, building a welcoming improv community in North Wales where everyone is encouraged to say “yes, and”.

You may also spot me with Liverpool Comedy Improv, Glossop Improv, or answering to the name “Iain the Hat”. Hat’s a story for another time.

As for The Oickers, I joined after being diagnosed with bananaitis. It’s a rare condition, but I’m told it makes me a-peel-ing.

You’ll find out loads more about my improv, voice acting, writing and other projects on my official website…

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Sekki is a Filipino currently living on the A57, between Manchester and Sheffield, in a little town called Glossop (don’t ask her how she got there, she launches into a Homer-esque level story 13 years in the making and you’ll never hear the end of it and then you’d miss your tea!).

When she found out that she and fellow improviser Jess Napthine-Hodgkinson didn’t drive, they decided to carve out their own little improv world in the upstairs of a pub, and this is how Glossop Improv was born—from two people’s reservations about taking the last train back from Manchester Piccadilly on cold rainy evenings.

After many sad twists and turns in our heroine’s story, Sekki was invited repeatedly by acting buddy Brigid Hemingway to give online improv a chance. By the summer of 2020, Emma Bird’s LCI classes inflicted Sekki’s bizarre shortform outbursts on a group of people who surprisingly loved it instead of telling her to go away forever, and this is how The Oickers got stuck with Sekki. Think of her as the browning banana to the fruit hamper’s more temperate fruit selection—healthy in a gooey, kind of icky way.

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Stu was raised by grey squirrels until he could no longer hide his nut allergy. Wandering alone in Wirral Country Park with little confidence, he was found and adopted by Liverpool Comedy Improv in the summer of 2019.

The Jedi Improv Master, Emma Bird and all the lovely people at Liverpool Comedy Improv raised him in the ways of improvisation. It is during this time that he met his fellow Oickers and now he no longer climbs trees or craves a bushy tail.