Resources

Keith’s second great magnum opus, developing the themes of Impro, with a whole abundance of practical games and procedures suitable for both performance and rehearsal, building on his years of experience running the Loose Moose Theatre and the University of Calgary. You will find the names Tom and Deborah feature among his merry band of players in some of the game descriptions, and it does indeed refer to the founders of the Spontaneity Shop.

One of the most effective communicators to emerge in recent years from the minefield of broadcast current affairs is the ex-DJ Ros Atkins, whose passion for getting across a brief and digestible but balanced and unhysterical account of a news story has led to his famous BBC ‘explainer’ videos, that became regularly viral through the pandemic. This account of how he and his writing team develop and create them should be of interest to everyone who cares about clear and authentic messaging.

Years of working with clients on presentations of their business data have made us keenly aware that numbers won’t do it alone. This is the classic guide by a US statistician, and only the first of a series of excellent books where he develops his ideas and provides hundreds of illustrations and examples. If you find your audiences glazing over with anxiety and boredom when you are presenting urgent figures and are keen to understand what is going wrong, this is a great place to start.

Apparently a cheerful dispatch from the world of advertising, but under the surface a fundamental description of the intuitive way that storytelling makes sense of the events that happen to us. Part of a whole generation of publications about narrative communication, and surprisingly useful for those involved in professional services.

A comprehensive guide to the theory and practice of improvised stage performance, sharing years of professional experience as one of the UK’s foremost specialist teaching and performing groups. Deborah and Tom’s classic book, now in its 4^th edition, is the go-to- guide for improvisers all over the globe who are ambitious for their groups, has suggestions for making this creative pursuit sustainable, and contains interviews with eminent teachers, directors and actors who have either trained us or trained with us, and built on our insights.

This important book, first published in 1979, is on the shelf of every British actor. A ground-up account of how improvised performance happens and how to do it yourself, dealing incidentally with the challenge of creativity, the inhibitory power of taboos and censorship, the damage that institutional education can do to a child’s learning capacity, and the intuitive structures of status and narrative. It is unusually easy to read, and for such a passionate statement of intent it is not in the least doctrinaire, and if you are happy to play along with some twinkly mysticism even the section on mask work will be illuminating to civilians and actors alike.