Hoopla Impro

Founding (January 2006)

Steve Roe and Edgar Fernando, childhood friends, founded Hoopla in January 2006 alongside early performers Rakesh Mistry and Joel Butler. What began as a free weekly workshop after work for GCSE drama school friends grew by word of mouth. The first public shows were held monthly at The Bedford in Balham, South London, for the first year.

Growth and Expansion

From The Bedford, Hoopla grew into the UK's largest improv company by student volume, relocating shows to The Miller at London Bridge in 2010. The company now runs shows five nights per week featuring companies from across the world, and operates across multiple London venues without a single permanent home.

London Improv Festival

In 2019, Hoopla launched its own annual London Improv Festival, which has grown into a significant event in the UK improv calendar.

Claims and Context

Hoopla describes itself as the first and longest-running improv theatre in the UK. This claim refers specifically to a dedicated improv training company rather than a performing troupe, as the Comedy Store Players predate Hoopla by over 20 years.

Hoopla Impro is London's largest improv training company by student volume, built from a 2006 pub workshop into a five-night-a-week operation producing the annual London Improv Festival.

Hoopla's weekly main-stage programme at The Miller, London Bridge, anchors the company's performing activity. Running every Friday and Saturday, the show mixes short-form and long-form sets from house teams, teachers, and guest groups. Named resident ensembles include Gamez, a short-form house team performing comedy games and scenes; The Descendants, a long-form narrative team creating serialised story-driven sets; Michelle, a long-form group that takes a suggested location and builds a whirlwind of characters and situations from it; and Track 96, a hip-hop improv group that builds rap and spoken-word scenes from a single audience word. Do The Right Scene, founded at Hoopla in 2017 by Tai Campbell and Athena Kugblenu, is a monthly show dedicated to Black performers and improvised comedy celebrating Black culture; it has since inspired sister initiatives including Comedi-Asians (2018), which celebrates Asian and South-East Asian improvisers. The company's UK and Ireland Improv Festival, launched in 2019, brought eighteen groups from Dublin, Glasgow, Birmingham, Nottingham, Leicester, and elsewhere to The Miller over two days, combining headline showcases, workshops, and networking sessions. For its twentieth anniversary in 2026, Hoopla mounted a seven-week festival (10 April to 21 May) at the same venue featuring Showstopper! The Improvised Musical, Grand Theft Impro, The Maydays, Abandoman, and members of The Comedy Store Players.

Hoopla Impro reshaped the infrastructure of British improvisation by establishing what became the UK's first dedicated improv theatre at The Miller, London Bridge, in 2010, and by building the country's largest improv school out of a free weekly pub workshop. Its consistent output of trained performers across two decades has made it a principal pipeline into London's professional comedy scene.

Several performers developed at Hoopla have built substantial careers in television, theatre, and comedy writing. Athena Kugblenu, a co-founder of the Do The Right Scene initiative at Hoopla, went on to appear on Mock the Week and Richard Osman's House of Games (both BBC Two). Monica Gaga was talent-spotted at Hoopla before joining The Comedy Store Players and appearing in Murder She Didn't Write at the Duchess Theatre in London's West End. Gemma Arrowsmith, who teaches Hoopla's sketch comedy course, is a writer-performer on the Emmy-nominated Tracey Ullman's Show (BBC One) and script editor on Newsjack (BBC Radio 4 Extra). Katharine Bennett-Fox has appeared in Doctors, Casualty, Shakespeare and Hathaway (BBC One), Trying (Apple TV+), and Borderline (Channel 5). Dylan Emery, who performs regularly at Hoopla, is co-founder of the Olivier Award-winning Showstopper! The Improvised Musical.

Hoopla's diversity programming has generated lasting institutional offshoots. Do The Right Scene, founded at Hoopla in 2017, became London's leading improv platform for Black and Global Majority performers and directly inspired Comedi-Asians (2018), The Bazaar (2024), and Untold Stories (2025), each building its own recurring performance series at the same venue. These initiatives have collectively expanded the demographic range of London's improv community in a documented and measurable way.

The company's reach extends into applied and corporate improvisation through Hoopla for Business, its dedicated corporate training arm. Cross-venue personnel connections, notably with The Nursery Theatre through shared teacher Chris Mead, have helped integrate Hoopla into a broader London improv ecosystem rather than operating as an isolated institution.