Amorphous blogs

Sheffield is an unusual city. Geographically and population-wise, it’s one of the largest in the UK, yet compared to places like Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and of course our loved and feared capital, it seems to slip under the cultural radar.

Unlike many of the cities which came to prominence during the Industrial Revolution, which tended to grow outwards from a central location, Sheffield is the result of close to a hundred towns and villages all expanding into one another until their territories overlapped to into one amorphous metropolitan blob. As a result, the centre of town lacks a certain something — a certainty about its status as a city, perhaps?

I’ve often thought that the city’s cultural outpourings have followed a similar trend. There are many comedy nights, theatres and music venues dotted about, but all too often it feels like the city is a collection of disparate groups, working in isolation, rather than a ‘scene’. On the surface, you might not see the hustle and bustle of cultural activity that you might expect from this number of people living and working in such close proximity, but under the surface are little pockets of creativity, bubbling away, waiting to be found by the curious.

When we come to improv, this lack of cohesiveness is amplified by the obscure nature of the artform. No matter how many TV shows are celebrated for their semi-scripted storylines, or how many Edinburgh runs the London scene giants sell out, the average person on the street is likely to have only heard of Whose Line Is it Anyway?, if you’re lucky.

This publication is first and foremost a place for me and mine to put our occasional musings on the artform, the scene and the culture of improv into a coherent, shareable format. However, it’s also an attempt to bridge some of those gaps within our city and to reach out to other cities. Sheffield has probably a hundred people currently active in improv groups and teams, with hundreds more satellites watching shows, attending jams or thinking about taking their first class.

We’re growing. And as we do, we want to share what’s going on and going through our scene with the world.

Let’s get started.