Event type: Theatre

ImprompTwo & Co presents The Sinner’s Table!

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. https://impromptwoimprov.com

T.J. Mannix presents – T.J. Mannix in LimboLand

One performer. Four chairs. Countless characters.

In LimboLand, veteran actor T.J. Mannix delivers a masterful solo performance, fully improvised and fueled by music. Without a script, T.J. creates an entire world onstage—inhabiting emotionally rich, deeply human characters whose stories shift effortlessly from hilarious to heartbreaking.

Whether duetting with himself or portraying multiple characters in the same moment, T.J. navigates humor, passion, and vulnerability with astonishing nuance. At any moment, a character may be compelled to sing—revealing something raw, joyful, or unexpectedly profound. ​ Limboland has headlined festivals around the world, and now T.J. is bringing this captivating, one-of-a-kind theatrical event to Liverpool. 

“Along with his vocal and comedic chops, T.J. Mannix embodied his characters with such emotional commitment and developed his plotlines with such specificity that moments of his set were as affecting as any drama.” SouthFloridaTheater.com

“Limboland is everything a one-man show can be. T.J. brings a whole universe of emotionally complex characters, with stories that go from funny to heartbreaking. A captivating experience with so much nuance and soul.” – Secret City Improv Festival

It’s a playful collective experience!

Following sell-out runs at Soho Theatre and the Edinburgh Fringe, the cult hit comes to Liverpool for the first time.

David Elms Describes A Room is a one-hour-long improvised show. In the show, veteran improviser David leads the audience through the game of building a room together as a collective. The objects in the room, the stories behind the objects, the person behind the stories. It’s different every time!

The show has run monthly at The Free Association theatre since May 2022 and travels to venues around the UK and beyond. 

“A lesson in the transcendent power of collective imagining” ★★★★ Brian Logan, The Guardian

​”A real triumph of the human imagination” ★★★★ ​Polly Glynn, The Skinny

“A strikingly impressive feat of memory, world-building and forging of communal purpose” ★★★★ Jay Richardson, The List ​ ​”This is surely one of the most original and artistic comedy shows on the fringe” ★★★★ Steve Bennett, Chortle

​“David’s very clever. He’s made a show that’s funny, original and different every time. You go there and bathe in it and try not to be jealous you didn’t think of it. Superb.” – Tim Key

“You’d have to be dead not to enjoy it” – Katy Wix

“David builds a comedy mind palace before your very eyes. And you’ll want to move in for good!” – Phil Wang

“Imaginative, soothing and gently immersive storytelling – the ASMR of improv” – Rose Matafeo

Andĕl Sudik & Rebecca MacMillan present – The Library of Forgotten Books

Breathe in. What do you smell? Paper. Dust. Leather bindings. Welcome to The Library of Forgotten Books – a place of ritual, where abandoned and neglected books are offered up and transformed into fleeting stories. In this dreamlike space of reverence and mischief, The Librarians examine forgotten volumes, channel their contents, and decide their fate: to be enshrined on the shelves of memory… or consigned to oblivion.

A mysterious, funny and moving improvised performance created by internationally acclaimed improvisers Anděl Sudik (The Second City, Boom Chicago) and Rebecca MacMillan (The Maydays, Closer Each Day), the show blends laughter, wonder, and the quiet thrill of transgression.

Audience members are invited to bring a book they’re ready to part with forever; these offerings may shape the night — or be ceremonially altered in the name of improv.

What will be remembered? And what will be forgotten?

Sam Marshall & Emily Rose present – Play It Again

Play It Again are immortal lounge performers, cursed to provide light entertainment forever! Give them your sultry suggestions, they’ll give you beautiful ballads and mesmerising musical pieces. Laugh and sing along as these eternal entertainers play it again, and again, and again…

here-elsewhere, performed and directed by Empty Set, the duo of Rosalind Grégoire and Christianna Tsigkou is a one of a kind improvised performance where live drawing, projection and storytelling transform the space itself into a shifting, imaginative world. here-elsewhere is a performance where space itself becomes a performer. The artists transform the room through live drawing, projection, and storytelling, creating a layered world that shifts between the seen and the imagined. As we explore hidden corners and small details of the space, a scratch on the wall, a glint of light, a forgotten object, these are magnified and projected as living landscapes where new stories emerge.

The performers respond, building a visual and emotional map of the room’s echo; strange, delicate, and deeply human. Each performance is unique, shaped by the architecture, atmosphere, and presence of those watching, transforming overlooked spaces into vivid, imaginative worlds, where stories emerge not from a suggestion, but from the materiality of the room. Equal parts theatre, live art and visual improvisation, here-elsewhere invites audiences to rediscover the spaces they inhabit and the stories that live quietly within them.

Gricers is a new, spontaneous theatre show created to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the modern passenger railway.

Inspired by Francis Bourgeois’s book The Trainspotters Notebook and Tom Quinn’s Railways’ Strangest Journeys, this show is a bittersweet and profound reflection on male friendship and quiet obsession.Meet Mike and Mark. Their quest isn’t for fame or fortune.

It’s for the 4:32 from Manchester Piccadilly, the 11:05 to Carlisle, the one last engine number that will make their collection complete. They are ‘Gricers’, standing trackside in rain and shine, a passionate, uniquely British tribe. The real journey isn’t on the rails. It’s in the waiting. In the shared flasks of tea, the silences, the decades of friendship.

This is the story of what happens in between the arrivals and departures, a tale of two men driven by a passion to complete a collection and the hope that they can finally finish. ​

Performed by Mike Burton (Stupid, Atom Improv), Mark Smith (HOOF!, The Fly, A Wake and Taxi Tales) and Fergus Wynne this spontaneous theatre event is like no other. The show features compelling storytelling, a cavalcade of characters and live DJ’ing.

Hello Castaways! Imagine you’re shipwrecked on a desert island. What would be your ‘go-to’ song and your most treasured item? With these suggestions to inspire them, Absolute Onions will produce a fully improvised tale, drenched with drama, emotion, fun and laughter! So, let’s drift away on your ocean of dreams!

Tales from the Armchair – Aunt Batty Knows

Step into the unsettling and absurd world of Aunt Batty Knows… as they weave dark tales of supernatural suspense.

Tales from the Armchair is an all-woman longform show which draws its inspiration from 1970s and 1980s TV drama programmes such as Play for Today and Tales of the Unexpected. 

Everyday characters and situations meet a context of eerie surrealism where we wonder, is the uncanny in the mind, outside of the mind or perhaps both? 

“To learn what we fear is to learn who we are. Horror defies our boundaries and illuminates our souls.”

― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

Shakespeare on the Spot – Stephen Longstaffe

The world clearly hasn’t enough Shakespeare, so this solo show improvises some more from audience suggestions. Your host (former university Shakespeare lecturer and current idiot) will transform whatever the Liverpool muses bring into new iambic speeches and dialogues by some of the bard’s most famous characters. It could get silly. No asps, daggers, or skulls are permitted in the venue, but feel free to bring another hitherto unknown Shakespeare prop along!

Life Happens! – AnneLiina & Quitar

Life is unpredictable — and that’s exactly where the magic begins. 

From Estonia’s kIMPROose collective, performers Anneli Kirotar, Liina Karro, and musician Maarius Pärn bring you Life Happens! — a spontaneous, heartfelt, and hilariously human exploration of connection in all its chaotic beauty. 

In this fully improvised show, Anneli and Liina dive into the wild landscape of relationships: the closeness and the distance, the conflict and the comfort, the moments that shift us when we least expect it. Every scene is created on the spot, shaped entirely by the performers’ quick thinking, creativity, and playful curiosity. 

Guiding and colouring the journey is Maarius Pärn on live guitar. His improvised soundscapes pulse through the performance — sometimes soft, sometimes bold — giving each moment its own emotional rhythm. Music and theatre weave together as the story evolves in real time. 

Funny, warm, and boldly unpredictable, Life Happens! invites you to witness how we navigate each other — one unexpected moment at a time.

The School of Night has been improvising Shakespeare since they were formed by theatre maverick Ken Campbell at the request of Mark Rylance at Shakespeare’s Globe in London in 2005. Their shows are wild and extravagent celebrations of theatre as they attempt to extemporise one of Shakespeare’s lost plays, inspired by audience suggestions. As well as being masters of improvising in iambic pentameter, The School enjoy breaking out into the styles of other great poets and playwrights. They might even make up a song or two. The School’s unique brand of literary improvisation has been seen all over the world, from the National Theatre to Elisonore Castle, from the Hay Literary Festival to the Edinburgh Festival. And now they are delighted to be asked back to Liverpool to continue asking the question: what if making stuff up was more fun than writing it down?

‘You cannot help but stare in awe as they perform’ ★★★★★ Broadway Baby

‘Uproarious, intelligent, laugh-a-minute fare’ ★★★★ Telegraph

‘Fearsomely able improvisers’ ★★★★ Financial Times

Using audience suggestions, Improv the Dead conjure up a spontaneous zombie flick right before your eyes, part B-movie schlock, part chaotic blockbuster, complete with thrills, gut-busting laughs, and fake blood. Plus, bonus features!

Between carnage-filled scenes, the cast can smash cut to improvised interviews with the characters, step into hilarious behind-the-scenes moments with the director and crew unveil deleted scenes that never made the cut—all created on the spot with your help.

So, if you’re looking for an evening of blood-soaked laughter, creeping suspense, and gloriously shambolic zombie antics, look no further.

Improv the Dead promises a high-energy, one-night-only horror-comedy experience that will leave you both terrified and tickled, and like any good cult classic, you’ll never see this exact film again.

“Delightfully funny and brilliantly unhinged.” ★★★★ A Shiny Life

Sometimes silly, sometimes serious, sometimes surreal, A Very Capable Boy are a duo who blend improvisation, alternative comedy and kitchen-sink drama to create a uniquely surprising live comedic experience.

For fans of I Think You Should Leave, The Royle Family, and Rick and Morty, the show draws from sources as varied as DIY music, absurdist theatre, and performance art to create a world full of darkly hilarious characters who move and amuse in equal measure.