Sam Pacelli’s insight into Noise Next Door’s new tour, laughter and improvisation
Comedy group Noise Next Door come to Warwick Arts Centre on Saturday 21 November on their countrywide tour ‘News in the Hood’.
The five members of the group Charlie, Tom, Matt, Sam and Tom create improvised shows based on audience input, producing exclusive performances every time.
Since the group’s formation they have appeared on the One Show, Britain’s Got More Talent and The Edinburgh Comedy Gala.
Prior to their performance I spoke to Sam Pacelli on their unique style of comedy, the history of the group, career advice and the plans for the group after their new tour.
Even as a kid I was relatively obsessed with trying to make people laugh and I’m lucky enough to be able to carry that over into a job which not many people get to do.
What began your interest in comedy?
Well it’s just fun isn’t it really? I know that’s quite a basic answer but the interesting thing about comedy is that above any other kind of performance it’s one with a response from the audience. So you’re always looking to make somebody laugh and from a theoretical point of view that’s just really interesting. Even as a kid I was relatively obsessed with trying to make people laugh and I’m lucky enough to be able to carry that over into a job which not many people get to do.
Where did your group get together?
We all met at university, most of us studying drama or theatre studies. A few of us were in the drama society and someone approached us saying ‘can you just do something as we have this space at a festival and we need you to do anything you can’. What was beautiful about it was that we didn’t have time to worry about being good at it we just threw ourselves at it. It was pretty successful so we started doing it on campus every week in two or three different bars, then in the town, and then around the county. That was about eight years ago.
What advice would you give to students wanting to pursue a career in comedy?
The best advice I could give is to just go and do it! There’s no better advice really than to just gain experience. If you want to do stand up, write a five minute set and just go and perform it at an open mic gig. Even if you’re only playing to twenty people, it’s better than playing to no one. The way you get better is to be in front of audiences as much as possible, so then you understand and learn what makes people tick and what makes them laugh essentially. So it’s about having that courage to have your first gig and get it out of the way.
What was beautiful about it was that we didn’t have time to worry about being good at it we just threw ourselves at it.
Would you say that when you started out it was different performing to fellow students compared to the audiences you perform to now?
Yeah it’s so different, you have to be malleable for different types of audiences. Actually the first thing that made us think we could do this as a job was when we had a run of gigs; one day we had a kids gig, the next day was our typical student night and after that we actually played to raise money to get a bus for an old people’s home. So three very different sets of people but we still managed to make them all laugh. Because it’s entirely improvised, we have the ability to really change our act for any different type of demographic and audience.
With your new tour ‘News in the Hood’, what different things can the audience expect?
We’re always working hard to create new structures. What we’re trying to work on is new ways of taking suggestions for example last year we took suggestions via text. This time we’re asking people for books and magazines making the results pretty entertaining. Also we have to use elements of previous tours because people get upset if we don’t do our classics. For example, we take suggestions about someone’s life and turn it into a love song with the same tune every time but obviously the content is different each time.
Because it’s entirely improvised, we have the ability to really change our act for any different type of demographic and audience.
After this tour, what’s the plan for the group? Are you planning to do more tours or expand in a different way?
Definitely, touring is really fun. It’s just really bubbly when people pay just to see you if they know who you are, or someone has told them who you are, or they’ve looked you up in a programme. The aim is to have regular, revolving touring shows every year in and year out, as well as trying to get onto TV basically. It’s always in the back of our minds as a goal to try and get a TV slot of sorts to translate what we do and what we’re very good at in front of a live audience.
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