Media Performance - improvisation masterclass

Gareth Brierley with Media Performance students

The creative juices were flowing as budding actors and actresses from the University of Bedfordshire gained some top practical advice.

Gareth Brierley is a writer and performer from London theatre company The People Show which has been running for the last 44 years in Bethnal Green.

He visited the Luton campus on Wednesday 24 November to give a masterclass to Media Performance students on using improvisation to make a devised theatre piece.

Gareth said: “We make shows from scratch at The People Show and the day is about giving the students the skills to do a performance from scratch."

"This is what the students will have to do in January for their final project."

“I talked about how we work at The People Show and this was a practical demonstration, rather than sitting around and talking about how to do things."

"This included creating and building a character and the students were fantastic and really got into the day.”

The students were unanimous in their praise for the day and some of the comments included:

Rosie Benjamin, a level three student: “Brilliant session; it was really energetic and creative. I thoroughly enjoyed it and have taken some very useful ideas for our special project from him. It was excellent and Gareth is very involved and passionate about the work we did with him; it was really inspiring.”
A level two student, Trevina Ebanks-Stewart: “I loved the first group session. I played a Jersey girl with my co-star and we never knew it then that we were about to become Lord of the Rings’ biggest fans, with a bit of a twist!”
Another level two student, AJ Bediako: “Some great exercises; completely different to others I have done before. A lot more physical activities - this was quite helpful as it is an important part of stage performance.”

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Media Performance - improvisation masterclass