The Suggestibles’ School of Improv will re-open its doors at Jurys Inn Newcastle, and resume our in-person programme of improv classes from 7th September. Plans are also afoot for more real-world improv workshops to happen over the summer at various venues. We want to get real life fun started soon - and safely, as we pay close attention to how the government’s road map is playing out.

Jurys Inn has been our School of Improv home for classes since 2017. After 14 years of moving around different venues in Newcastle, Jurys proved to be a fantastic base. With it being so close to central station, and with several meeting rooms, we were able to expand our programme of evening classes, and keep them all under one roof. On Monday 16th March 2020, of course that all came tumbling down due to Covid.

In April 2020 we adapted our improv classes to work online. Just a few to begin with, but they grew quickly in popularity, and unexpectedly attracted new students from all over the world. By last summer, we were able to offer a similar virtual programme to what we’d had in the real world before. The joy of meeting so many new people over such turbulent times has been an incredible privilege. We have been through a lot together, and this has created a strong bond. We’ve taken improv to new places we never knew existed. We adapted, as improvisers do, and thankfully, this meant we were just about able to stay afloat.

Now it’s time to adapt again. As this time, we won’t only be running classes in-person, but online as well. There’s a lot to figure out on how to make it all happen – after all, Bev and Ian lead all our regular classes, and try though they may, they can’t be in two places at once!

From September, our In-person Programme will start-off by running on Tuesday and Wednesday nights at Jurys Inn, and include our 4 main levels of classes: Beginners L1, Improvers L2, Headway L3, and Advanced L4. We expect our Online Programme will mainly be held on Thursdays, and take the shape of Improv Fix Classes L2-4, to start with.

Our students living local to Newcastle will have the option of taking in-person, online, or indeed both. We want to keep our local and global communities connected as best we can, and online jams will also continue twice a month.

In July and August, we hope to be offering some in-person workshops, to get us all used to being in the same room together again, refreshing our improv muscles in a phsyical space, and having some real-world fun together. These may be at Jurys or elsewhere. We’d absolutely love to get our musical improv workshops going again soon too. They have been sorely missed. Depending on how the government’s road-map plays out, summer workshops may need to be socially distanced, and best masked at times, but we will have to wait and see.

We’re keeping a close eye on Covid guidelines, and being cautious. Safety is our number one priority, and you can be sure that once in-person classes resume, we will have the right measures in place so you can feal comfortable and confident to take-part.

There are no firm plans as yet to run any School of Improv shows this year, but we are currently talking to venues about possibilities. We hope to launch with a ‘Glitter Curtain Cabaret’ party, and end the year with some kind of Christmas event at the end of November or early December.