MoodyComedy speaks to Alex O’Bryan-Tear, Josh Hunt, Jesse Locke and Harriet Cartledge about their improv comedy group, Hivemind. Hivemind will be performing two improvised shows (Improvengers: Pretend Game and Lord of the Game of the Ring of Thrones) at the Museum of Comedy in London throughout December and January.
1) Hands for feet or feet for hands?
Alex: Why not both? Why limit ourselves?
Jess: Reach for the stars with your feety, feety hands.
Harriet: But seriously, who wants more feet? I personally have more than enough.
Alex: If anything, you have too many already.
2) Does being part of such a large group of performers make the job easier or harder?
Josh: You’ve clearly never seen the London Philharmonic Orchestra if you think we’re a large group of performers.
Jesse: We’re like an ecosystem where every one of us has a vital part to play. If you take one us away, we go extinct.
Alex: For example, if you take me away as the alpha predator, you end up with five Joshes. It’s only by the regular eating of Josh that harmony can be maintained.
Harriet: I guess what we’re trying to say is that it makes it easier.
3) What’s the best thing about public transport?
Jesse: If you get there first, you get to drive it.
Alex: That’s so true! Wow.
Harriet: I once saw a guy watching a video on how to pick up women, but he didn’t realise his headphones weren’t plugged in. It was basically just me and him on this train. Without public transport, I’d never have got to enjoy that moment.
4) What would you like people to take away from your shows?
Alex: Our corporate business cards.
Jesse: The antidote.
Harriet: Not the keyboard, we have to keep that.
Josh: Unattainably high standards with which to judge all improv groups in the future.
5) What was the last ridiculous thing you saw?
Harriet: There’s so much ridiculous stuff in London that it just washes over you.
Jesse: Like someone was doing falconry with parrots on Primrose Hill. It was fine.
Josh: I saw a guy with feet for hands. I saw a guy with hands for hands. What’s his problem?
Jesse: I was at a party where some people were recreating the trauma of birth. People were covered in goo then wrapped in plastic and squeezed into a pool of water.
6) What is the worst advice you’ve ever been given?
Josh: I think I tend to give bad advice rather than receive it.
Harriet: So you’re the evil one?
Alex: Give up on your dream of becoming a princess, you’ll never make it. Just they wait!
Harriet: When I was twelve, I told my mum I wanted to become an interior designer and she told me I didn’t have the flair.
Alex: Well, now we know you don’t have the flair. But at the time, who knew what was inside of you?
7) Should humans be trying to live longer?
Jesse: No, but other animals should. Keep up, badgers.
Alex: Ever since I was born, I’ve tried to live longer than I currently am. So far it’s been a 100% success.
Josh: Who doesn’t want to live longer? Though I don’t want to get crippling neuroviruses.
Harriet: And only if you don’t turn into like, a raisin.
For more information, visit Hivemind’s website and follow them on Twitter