Calling all humans and robots! This May, as part of the 2025 Brighton Fringe, you can join Improbotics for a futuristic Choose-Your-Own-Adventure game. The best part? RoboTales is hosted by an endearing robot!
Here, Improbotics co-founder Piotr Mirowski takes us behind the scenes of RoboTales to reveal how the show was created.
Black Mirror IRL
Komedia: Hi Piotr! First things first, what’s the show about?
RoboTales is an improvised choose-your-own adventure game, played in front of the audience by the talented cast of Improbotics. The twist in RoboTales is that a robot writes and directs the show. The bot uses speech recognition and state-of-the-art AI (we developed the software ourselves!) to analyse the improv scenes and generate silly new choices and strange transitions.
The audiences control the story by voting on their phones for their preferred choice (like a modern take on the choose-your-own adventure books), and then the actors take the story forward. It is like “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch”, brought to life by AI and the actors’ imagination and improv talent.
Komedia: Colour us intrigued… And impressed! Where did that idea come from?
The idea of improvising with AI came to us about 10 years ago, when it was still a fairly niche topic. I was researching and building AI (like, for instance, language models), while also performing on stage as an actor and improviser. One day I tried to improvise on stage with a robot, powered by a language model that I coded-up myself. There was a strange connection between language models (who keep making stuff up and generate the most likely answer based on their training data) and improvisers (who strive at being spontaneous, and at always saying “the most obvious” thing, while also carefully listening to their stage partners). Obviously, the analogy between machines and improvisers stops there, but it was inspiring enough for me to explore bringing an AI onto the theatre stage.
Then I met Kory Mathewson, another researcher in robotics and improv comedian at the Rapid Fire Theatre, who had the same idea: we became friends and set up a theatre company where human actors improvise alongside machines. The Improbotics’ ethos is to make your stage partner look good, even when it is a robot!
Komedia: We’re sure the robots appreciate that. We all want to look our best on stage!
The Evolution of Improbotics
Komedia: Have things changed at all, over the years?
Thanks to the amazing, international cast of humans who came to shape the company, the shows have evolved quite a bit. Boyd Branch designed augmented reality shows that kept us connected and provided emotional support during Covid lockdowns. We improvised multilingual shows with live AI translation with the Swedish cast of Improbotics. And we explored AI as a tool for grounded, emotional improv with Sarah Davies.
Komedia: Improbotics International! That’s got a nice ring to it. It must have been a challenge to figure out what works and what doesn’t, right?
It’s hard to design a show that bridges different audiences, handles some very experimental technology while also entertaining festival punters looking for comedy. We now call ourselves a science comedy troupe!
Komedia: Sounds like you’ve found your niche! Any friends that deserve a shout-out for helping you get there?
Veteran improvisers and improv educators Katy Shutte and Chris Mead, as well as Jenny Rowe from The Maydays, have immensely helped design the dramaturgy of improvising with machines.
Komedia: We get by with a little help from our friends, right? And we love The Maydays too!
See RoboTales at Komedia Brighton on Sat 3 May at 2.30pm and Sun 4 May at 5.30pm.
Follow Improbotics on Instagram: @improbotics
