Tilt Workshop: Phil Whelans (GBR) - Fiendish Plotting

It’s nice to hear laughter from an audience but how often do we hear them gasp – “How did she know the key would be missing?” – or not hear them at all because they’re holding their breath with the unbearable tension of it all? Can we be more ambitious with our plotting? How can we make plot connections through which we look not just clever, but attractive and popular*? Using whatever we find in the long-form narrative toolbox, we’ll loosen, then tighten again, the nuts and bolts of story.

*Class may not make you look attractive and popular. Terms and Conditions apply.

Level: intermediate, advanced.

Phil has been improvising for 30 years, starting out with Theatresports at the Donmar Warehouse, Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh and Glasgow Mayfest, then, subsequently, in Toronto, Seattle, San Francisco and at Montreal’s Just for Laughs Comedy Festival for CBCTV. He was in T.V. and radio pilots, Gibberish (Celador T.V.) and Altered Egos (Radio 4.) He was in Hamlet Improvised (London Mime Festival), the improvised courtroom drama, Court in the Act, at Watford Palace and Chichester Festival Theatres and Eddie Izzard’s Impro M.D. His Double Act, the Sean Connery Brotherhood was on Warehouse (HTV) and Disney Club (LWT) as well as in Amnesty International’s Secret Compere’s Policedog (Duke of York’s Theatre.) He was a founder member of Spontaneous Combustion; the group devised and performed five different improvised plays, True Confessions, Outrageous Lies, Human Celluloid, Spontaneous Combustion Raise the Dead and Sub-Post Office of Death, all toured nationally including The Gilded Balloon and The Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh
and Shakespeare’s Globe as well as making various TV and Radio appearances. Phil is
currently in impro groups Grand Theft Impro and Monkey Toast, his impro show, Séance
Fiction has played across London and he’s taken part regularly in the annual 50-hour
Improvathon.
Phil learnt from, among others, Philippe Gaulier, Jacques leCoq, John Wright, Keith
Johnstone, David Glass and Ken Campbell. He’s taught at LAMDA, Central, East 15, The
Drama Studio and Fourth Monkey.

grandtheftimpro.com/