The Shambles
The Shambles is an improvised comedy troupe, creating scenes of exuberance and hilarity based entirely on your suggestions. So without you, we are nothing. Our energetic ensemble stand every night on stage at your mercy – we could ask you for a household object around which to base a scene, and you might say, I don’t know, a whisk. “We’ll take your whisk!” we say, “and how is this whisk special?” You’re witty, we know that, everyone knows that, you have friends, colleagues, and children who perpetually congratulate you on how hysterically funny you are, so you yell “It belongs to the Terminator!” or “It’s attached to a cat’s face!” or even “It has time travelling powers!” Other people are yelling other things – there’s a lot of yelling – and our compère has to choose only one lucky suggestion for the Shambles to use. In actual fact you could be the least imaginative person in the world and you’d still come out with a sterling idea – maybe that whisk was just yellow or broken or made of metal, but the Shambles will turn it into a scene or story to split your very sides.
We have an extensive catalogue of short form improvisation games with which to tickle and surprise you, skipping from sea shanties to shopping channels, mystery restaurants to interrogation rooms, biblical epics to horror to art house to buddy comedy to silent film (your choices of course) and even one gem where we get one of you up on stage to literally sing your praises. That one’s called Serenade. Watch out.
Established in 2006, The Shambles is a short form comedy improvisation troupe based in York. A sharp young bunch, we perform weekly in and around the city as well as delivering open workshops to introduce anyone who’s keen to try to spontaneous scene craft. Described as “Incredible” **** (ThreeWeeks), “Really genuinely funny” (List), and having “the whole audience soon swept up into a roar of merriment and mirth” (York Vision), The Shambles’ “infectious” energy has had audiences plagued with laughter for years. We are returning to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2012 for a two week run with our cast of excellent actors, stand up comics and musicians, offering up a completely unique and unrepeatable show every night.
