Mike Alfreds

We looked at Mike Alfreds as our first practitioner in Acting Technique. Mike Alfreds specialises in improvisation as a directing technique. We did many different exercises to explore this idea further.

For example: The first exercise we did was an improvisation exercise. We sat in pairs and Tim gave us a situation, e.g. we are step-siblings on a train station and our train is delayed. We had to make our character's emotions and opinions and really listen to the other person's actions to be able to react and respond appropriately because anything could happen in the scene.

After this, we then did a clap change improvisation exercise, every time Tim clapped, we had to change our physicality to something different. e.g. standing, squatting, lying down etc. When Tim said "Go" we had to start a scene. It was hard because one of you had to just launch into it, which was difficult, as the other person had to be open to going with whatever ideas were thrown at them.

We did this a few times, there were difficulties with this task, such as having to listen really carefully to each other and making sure that the scene just loops and nothing happens. It can become boring and repetitive, so throw something new in the scene. Give your partner something to bounce off and bring the energy to the scene.

We then did an exercise where one of us left the room and the other person had to think of a situation and when the other person entered the room, they had to find out who they were, where they were and what their relationship to the other character was. This was hard, because when you first enter the room, you don't know what to expect. It was tricky for me because Tim said to let them make the first move, however Nora didn't look at me, so I had to go over to her and because she was playing a socially awkward character at a party, I had to really dig to find out where we were, who's party it was, how I knew her and the host. It was very difficult, but I feel like I still managed to figure it out.

We then had to do an exercise that involved one person miming doing something for someone. Some people acted out nice things, such as wrapping presents etc. Nora acted out getting a paint gun and filling it with paint pellets. We had to guess what our partner was doing and really watch them. We then swapped and we had to act out any action that has a routine to it. Something you can do the same repeatedly, so I did putting on make-up in the morning. We did this to develop our miming skills and allow us to be able to interpret actions in a different way and be able to make it really clear to the audience, exactly what it is we're doing.

It was a helpful lesson, where I learnt many new improvisation techniques and what it takes to perform a good piece of improvisation and make it very clear to the audience what you're doing, but being able to control your emotions, such as - not laughing or not being sure of what to say and panicking on stage, because it will not make your scene believable.