January is a good time to do courses. Everyone is full of hope and excitement at doing something new, which is important in a month as cruel as this. [1]

I joined a Level 3 course run by the local improv Kingpins The Maydays. I did this despite having not done their 1 and 2 courses, though I have dabbled with improv elsewhere, in a previous life, when I danced to the cockney beat of the bow bells. I mean, when I lived in London.

It turned out I needn’t have worried. It was a lovely, energetic, and playful group of people, and I didn’t feel out of my depth. Which is good, as being out of your depth is a very sad place to be.

Indeed, the teacher explained to me afterwards in the pub that had I not been up to scratch, he would have taken me to one side quietly at the end of class, after all the others had left, and had me shot.

The stereotype about improv is that it’s a bit of a cult, and there is some truth to this. It attracts earnest people seeking place, togetherness, and meaning, whereas I am a terrible person who wants to destroy hope.

The other stereotype is that it’s full of people who are letting off creative steam due to working in preposterously evil jobs, like chief Musk fluffer or senior civil servant in the department of murdering children.

Or worse, they think the skills they are learning via improv will make them an even more successful murderer of children.

There’s some truth to this too, and of course improv has a bit of a class problem. The low point for me was watching a show at the Free Association, where the troupe riffed, for some minutes, around the concept of owning an Aga.

But fundamentally, improv is play. And as adults, we have to be serious far, far too often, like oh I don’t know being in a work meeting and pretending what you’re doing and the jargon you’re using is serious and important.

Games, play, and human connection are all good things, and as I sat holding hands in a circle at the end of our session, thanking the others for specific and general things that they had done to make me happy, I thought: fuck it, there are worst cults to be in.

The Moonies, for instance.

[1] I know, I know, some other month claims to be the cruel one. My view is: multiple months can be cruel. It’s controversial but I’m sticking with it. This is the hill I am prepared to die on.