The Sparrow Men | Midsumma Festival interview

From humble beginnings in July 2014 to now being a Premier Event at the 2017 Midsumma Festival, The Sparrow Men - aka. Andy Balloch and Marcus Willis - have garnered a reputation as one of Melbourne's most esteemed improv acts. The two have been performing regularly with no script, no direction and no idea on what is going to come out of their mouths for 2 and a half years and could not be more excited to be returning to the festival where they debuted their first full-length performance in 2015.

"Improv is such an incredible art form, and the only one where the process is the actual product. Every night we get to write, direct and star in our own play. And like plays, they can be funny, sad, dramatic, absurd, linear, non-linear, thematic based, premise driven, tackle important issues, non-important issues, it can be meta, non-meta, interactive, non-interactive, in English or not in English. We can play humans, birds, or anything in-between, play 1 character each, or 20, maybe there’s a narrator, maybe not," Balloch tells me.

The Sparrow Men | Melbourne Fringe Festival interview

Speaking from experience, improvising on stage to a roomful of people can be a completely exhilarating experience while for some, a completely petrifying one. There is no script, no director and no safety net. You are literally in the moment and have nothing to work with except your fellow improvisers and your imagination. Retuning to Melbourne Fringe this year with their own brand of impro humour and style are Andy Balloch and Marcus Willis, aka. The Sparrow Men.

The Sparrow Men have no sets, no props, save for two or three black chairs, and have only a suggestion from the audience to begin their shows. "Because each show is entirely unique, we approach each one differently. We don't really have a "framework" that we use to guide us through. However, we generally assume everything is happening in the same world," Balloch says. "At the heart of it, Marcus and I just listen really hard to each other and pay attention as best we can. We've run scenes in the dark to help us listen to each other, trailed different ways to create and endow characters and practiced running longer scenes."