£25
Tickest to the opening night show and jam!

£25
Tickets to every show on Thursday Night!

£32
Tickets to every show on Friday Night!

£35
Tickets to every show on Saturday Night,

£32
Tickets to every show on Sunday Night

19:30 (£6)
Making It Up is the improv programme at Nottingham Playhouse (UK Theatre of the Year 2025). This ensemble is made up of newer performers to the Nottingham improv community, most of whom are performing at their first ever improv festival.

20:30 (£8/£6)
An improv jam where YOU could be the one of the stars of the show! Just put your name in the hat and you could be doing a scene on stage with some of the most talented improvisers around!

19:00 (£10/£6)
Ghost Quarters (International Ensemble)

Join a ragtag selection of Ghosts from various eras as they continue to haunt the location where all of them met their end. Inspired by BBC's Ghosts this show will be joyful, silly, heartfelt and often incredibly earnest.

Dead End

20:15 (£10/£6)
Comediasians (London)

Comediasians are the UK's premier pan-Asian improv group, hailing from London on a mission to bring laughs from the diasporASIA and champion greater diversity in the UK comedy scene. We love to bring our heritage and culture to the stage and sprinkle our sets with heart, silliness, and our Asian spice!

21:15 (£10/£6)

Tales From the Darkive (Nottingham)

Nottingham's favourite horror comedy show invites the audience to make suggestions in the form of "The case of X" or "The X incident" via information access request forms from the "Institute's" dark archive. They then perform a cosmic horror mystery story using the documentary format i.e. narrative scene interspersed with interviews and archival footage. There is an emphasis on lighting, music and sound effects to create an immersive and creepy atmosphere

Bear Milk (Germany)

Bear Milk creates a one act play of criss-crossing characters, stories and relationships. Unfolding in real time, their show reveals the hilarious absurdity lurking beneath both the seemingly ordinary and the decidedly unusual.

19:00 (£12 / £8)
PGraph Presents: New Works (USA)

A play in ANY style inspired right before it happens on stage? The four members of Parallelogramophonograph will do that and then some in New Works: A fully improvised one-act play in which the genre, acting style, themes, characters, and plot are inspired by the audience each night. A sweltering Southern Gothic drama? A witty 1970s buddy cop caper? A futuristic sci-fi dystopian epic? You’ll have to wait and see.

Parallelogramophonograph (Kareem Badr, Kaci Beeler, Roy Janik, and Valerie Ward) has been performing together for over 20 years and 1500 shows (and counting!). PGraph spent years developing original formats and studying scripted theatre, improv, and storytelling.

20:15 (£10 / £6)

The Loophole (Germany)

Inbal and Raschid will challenge each other to create their own soundtrack during the show with the musical instruments they have on stage. They will use the soundtrack and their perspectives on life, politics, society, and humanity as inspiration to create a collage of scenes they call “The Loophole.”

The Secret Show (Nottingham)

Juicy confessions, awkward mishaps and scandalous secrets all get exposed at The Secret Show. What’s the one thing you’ve never told a soul? The Secret Show turns your anonymous whispers into laugh-out-loud scenes.

21:30 (£10 / £6)

Supercut Present: Tales of Sherwood (Denmark)

A medieval fantasy set on the edges of Sherwood Forest, where loyalty is tested and power shifts in the shadows. Outlaws, nobles, and wanderers collide in a world of shifting alliances and whispered legends.

A fully improvised epic of steel, secrets, and the stories history forgot.

18:00 (£10 /£6)

“the HERd: Female Voices in Improv” (Greece)

Athens’ first all-female improv ensemble — a dynamic group of women that bring the female experience on stage through comedy. With sharp humor, big heart, and the audience as our creative partner, we challenge gender stereotypes and celebrate the richness and diversity of women’s stories, in a bold, playful, and thought-provoking performance.

Brand New Musical (Folkestone / Nottingham)

Katy Schutte, Lloydie James Lloyd and Sam Marshall perform a brand new musical inspired by Stephen Sondheim and Jason Robert Brown. The characters, location, music, lyrics and story are created in the moment and inspired by a single audience suggestion. This is a funny, heartfelt show, often containing LGBTQ+ characters.

19:15 (£10 / £6)

The Jess’s’s’s (Ireland)

The Jess's's's bring you endearing and hilarious characters in a world of possibility in longform improv. They are expert at exploring the odd little distances that can exist between people (or forest creatures or geological features) that actually might care about each other very much.

The Victor (London)

POETRY x IMPROV

Loosely based on a poetry slam, an ensemble alternates between poems created on the spot based on audience suggestions and improv scenes inspired by the poems.

Surreal, funny, and poetic!

Brigadiers (Bulgaria)

Expect whimsy and emotion as this team quiz an audience member and turn the information into an original piece with no predetermined format.

20:45 (£10 / £6)
The Sinner’s Table (USA / UK)

It’s where the wedding leftovers are seated — the loud uncle with the booming laugh, the aunt who refills her wine before the toast is over, and the singles who've left a trail of stories and broken hearts behind them. It's where truths are nudged, jokes go too far, and sparks sometimes fly out of nowhere. It’s unpredictable, unfiltered, and just a little bit unholy. It’s the table where everyone secretly wishes they were sitting.

Bug Cafe (International Ensemble)

Sometimes we overlook the little things. But not tonight.

Ants, beetles, spiders & bumblebees all have stories too. If we look in a flower or under a log, we might find the greatest love or the deepest grief growing between the roots of the forest. In this ensemble one-act play, we'll see what a slice of life looks like when you are only crust-high.

22:00 (£10 / £6)

Helliday - The Improvised Horror Show (International Ensemble)

It was supposed to be a lazy vacation in the middle of nowhere. A quiet old cabin in the woods and a group of friends. But someone, or something, had other plans. Fear, death, limbs flying, and guts on the wall. Who will die first, and who will become our "finale girl?". An all-star cast of improvisers star in 'Helliday': a late-night gory improvised horror comedy created by Polish improviser Beata Różalska.

Cast: Jim Fishwick, Sophie Hard, Sarah McGillion, Hal Munger, David Raitt, Katy Schutte, and Liam Webber.

18:00 (£10 / £6)

INottingham Folks

(International Ensemble)

An improvised show inspired by the folklore of Nottinghamshire; including characters, practices and celebrations of local lore. Perhaps we'll meet hooded figures, learn the story of Gotham, have a fairy encounter or finally uncover the Old Ship tunnels. Directed by Katy Schutte.

Kim & Tim

(Vietnam / Singapore)

The concept of 姻缘 (yīnyuán) in Chinese, or "nhân duyên" in Vietnamese, refers to the string of fate that connects 2 individuals into a beautiful intersection of love, care, and destiny.

What happens when people with a strong string of fate in past lives are reborn into bodies that cannot communicate with each other? Does love transcend language, or is love at communication's mercy?

19:15 (£20 / £16)

Showstopper! The Improvised Musical

(London)

A special one hour version of the Olivier Award-winning West End smash hit!

The Showstoppers improvise a hilarious new musical every night, entirely created from audience suggestions.

The mind-blowing, must-see phenomenon, as heard on BBC Radio 4, has been an Edinburgh Festival Fringe sensation for 16 years - and with over 1,500 hilarious made-up musicals to their name, The Showstoppers never perform the same show twice.

★★★★★ ‘So polished, it defies belief.’ Daily Telegraph

★★★★ ‘If this is what improv can do, you wonder why anyone bothers writing anything down.’ The Times

★★★★★ ‘Achingly funny…worth seeing again and again.’ Time Out

20:30 (£10 / £6)

The Pretend Company

(London)

"Beautiful. Hilarious. Spontaneous." The Pretend Company are an improv company working across London and Southend specialising in improvised theatre that is just as funny as it is heart-felt. Expect 3-dimensional characters and real-feeling relationships to be balanced with belly laughs and absurd flights of fancy from a cast of veteran improvisers.

Impro Köln

(Germany)

"ELLE – You Are Beautiful" is an all-female improv show about beauty standards – and what they do to all of us.

From flat stomachs to thigh gaps to being “too much,” we take apart the rules that constantly measure and reduce us.

With humor, honesty, and bold improvisation, we turn pressure into play and expectations into empowerment.

21:45 (£12 / £8)

TRE TING

(Norway)

A crowd favourite from last year's festival, TRE TING return with “What´s on TV” - an improvised play that is set in a place where there is a TV, freely decided by the audience. Throughout the play the stories unfold in parallel by weaving back and forth between the stories playing on the TV, and the stories going on outside it. Like a mosaic the stories cross each other and/or come together.

18:00 (£10 / £6)

Instant Noodling (London)

Instant Noodling are a long-form twoprov group from London who focus on character and relationship-driven stories. They are both of Asian heritage, grew up in the west, and love to bring in their cultural references and experiences (as well as a love of science!) into their shows. A bit salty, a bit spicy, to be consumed in moderation - Instant Noodling is what happens when James & Stephen think fast to satisfy your cravings.

StarTurn (Nottingham)

Meet your new favorite singer—you just haven’t met her yet! In Star Turn, you write the set list, and Naomi brings the songs to life. It’s a completely improvised concert where every catchy hit is made up on the spot

Watch as incredible performers turn your suggestions into unforgettable melodies—spontaneous, hilarious, and full of heart. From powerhouse vocals to unexpected twists, you’ll be amazed by the musical magic created right before your eyes.

Limoncello (USA)

Limoncello is an all-woman troupe of improv veterans and all-stars in their own rights who have joined forces to tell improvised stories. Their newest format, "Girls Trip Gone Bad", is an improvised tale of a vacation that tumbles out of control into the wild and weird. Always committed, always confident and always unexpected.

19:30 (£10 / £6)

At Home

(Sheffield / Liverpool)

An unscripted theatrical piece inspired by 20th century British theatre and slice of life sitcoms.

Think Alan Bennett, John Osborne and Keeping Up Appearances – but with something new in every performance.

Relatable characters you may wish were not so familiar – At Home reminds us that there is drama and humour behind every front door.

Frie Tøyler

(Norway)

"Whispers of the north" is an improvised folk musical that brings the dark, magical, and playful world of Norwegian folklore to life on stage. Inspired by the collected tales of Asbjørnsen & Moe, our ensemble dives into a landscape of trolls, hidden folk, enchanted forests, and impossible tasks.

20:45 (£10 / £6)

Baba’s Tales

(International Ensemble)

BABAS TALES is an improvised storytelling performance by Raschid Daniel Sidgi, who steps into the role of his father, “Baba” — a wild, magnetic storyteller whose tales blurred the line between truth and invention. Drawing from memories of growing up between Europe and East Africa, the show weaves together spirits, animals, ancestors, love, chaos and humour in a constantly shifting theatrical world. With all performers on stage throughout, BABAS TALES is a playful and intimate homage to the power of storytelling and the people who shape us.

Cast: Raschid Daniel Sidgi, Paul Berrocal, Caity Curtis, Lloydie James Lloyd, Bebe Różalska, Sascha Sokolova, and Aree Witoelar.

21:45 (£10 / £6)
Words Beggar

(Japan)

From Japanese clown Oshow comes Words Beggar — a world-travelled, word-hungry improv clown show where the audience holds the power. You don’t just watch the performance, you build it: teaching Oshow the words he will use to play games, spin stories, and shape the character he becomes in real time. Having performed across 13 cities in 10 countries and in multiple languages, no two shows are ever the same — because no two audiences ever are. What emerges is spontaneous, playful, and completely unpredictable: a clown made entirely out of the words you give him.

RHIIF'd for Your Pleasure

(International Ensemble)

Sometimes a line just hits. If you've seen improv before, you know the ones. The notable quotables that stick with you long after the show is over. Usually they'd just live on as memories, but this show takes them somewhere new. A cast of RHIIF familiar faces and VIPs will take lines and quotes from throughout the festival and weave them into brand new scenes. Fun, loose, silly, and full of heart, it's a celebration of what makes RHIIF great and the perfect punch of joy to close out another edition.

A show devised, cast, and put together by festival stalwarts Henry Bowler, Nora Macleese and Ben Macpherson.