As anyone who’s seen the great TJ & Dave at this venue can testify, a particular pleasure derives from watching veteran improvisers at work. The anxiety that can attend this art form falls away, in the company of artists fully in control of the flow of their impulses and off-the-cuff ideas. That’s the case with this Chicago quartet, who arrive boasting Second City credentials, a founding role (alongside Amy Poehler) in the Upright Citizens Brigade, and TV credits including Veep, SNL and The Good Place.
Their improvising touch is sure, then – even if the format isn’t. They’re here to “bring long-form improv to the UK”, they tell us, but what follows is suspended somewhere between sketch comedy and long-form as usually understood. Expats don’t improvise a full-length story with a beginning, middle and end. They take themes and ideas from the audience, riff on them with recurring characters in loosely connected scenes – then reboot the process and start again.
