Hoopla improv comedy club is turning 20 this Spring, and celebrating with a packed programme of improv shows. RH & Friends launched the anniversary celebrations last night, performing to an enthusiastic, sold-out audience.
The Friends part of the title on this occasion consisted of two improv groups: relative newcomers, Not a Cult, who met doing classes at Hoopla; and the more experienced Valkyrie. In the first half of the show, these groups made up short scenes based around suggestions from the audience. We learned that it’s important to have your chakras aligned before you take off in a space shuttle, and demons are responsible for Ryanair baggage fees. The experience of Valkyrie was clear in their adoption of different characters, but the Not a Cult performers had some clever scene ideas and plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. I would have liked an explanation of the improv style before they started though, as there are a huge range of games out there, and something as simple as ‘one of us will tap in when we have an idea for a new scene’ means the audience doesn’t have to spend the first few minutes working out what the performers are doing (especially helpful for people who have never seen improv before).
After the interval, we had long form improv from The RH Experience, with a revival of their show Stuck! They created characters based on suggestions from the audience and found a way to get them stuck somewhere together, then found a way to resolve the situation. In this show, a clockmaker, a surgeon and a crab fisherman were trying to escape from a grandfather clock.
The RH Experience has been performing at Hoopla regularly for around 18 years, and consists of Conor Jatter, Luke Spillane and Tom Webster, three very talented and funny performers, supported with background music by Will Dixon. Their 50 minutes on stage flew by as they told the story of three men stuck in a clock, with frequent flashbacks to their individual lives, including the fisherman’s past as an investment banker wondering if there’s anything outside Canary Wharf, and the surgeon’s shrinking machine that allowed him to go inside people’s bodies to heal them. Conor Jatter made a surprisingly good appendix.
RH and Friends is fun night out that will keep have you still laughing after you’ve left the theatre. They won’t be doing Stuck! again but seeing as no improv show is ever the same, the format is less important than the talent, and you are definitely in safe hands with these three.
The 20th Anniversary celebrations continue till the end of July with a wide range of improv shows at the Hoopla venue near London Bridge. RH & Friends is there monthly. Tickets are available here: https://www.hooplaimpro.com/improv-comedy-club-london-bridge.html
Reviewer: Charlotte Mansfield
Reviewed: 10th April 2026
North West End UK Rating:
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