The Noise Next Door

Ropetackle Arts Centre, Shoreham

Saturday, March 2

IMPROVISED comedy troupe The Noise Next Door – made up of Tom Livingstone, Robin Hatcher, Sam Pacelli and returning member Matt Grant – are well known for their unique stand-up show. Matt used to be in the group before brief hiatus but has now returned. Jamie Walker spoke to Robin about the group’s line-up changes and what’s in store for them this year.

You have had a change to your line-up – tell us about that.

We certainly have.

It’s an old face coming back more than anything.

Of the original five members of The Noise Next Door, one guy Tom Houghton left to do a solo career in stand-up and the next year our buddy Matt had to go too because he decided he wanted to try his hand at behind-the-scenes film making.

He found that to be very hard work and missed this lifestyle.

So, he said he wanted to come back and our friend Charlie Granville said he wanted to focus on being a dad so it was perfect timing.

It must be nice that the timings worked out so well?

It’s absolutely brilliant.

It means that we still have a strong team and it’s worked out best for everyone.

How long had this change been in the pipeline?

Charlie’s baby, her name is Lola, she was born in January last year.

We wanted to support him to make his new job as a dad as easy as possible.

But of course by our nature we’re out on the road a lot and he decided he wanted to be at home and see his family a bit more – this was mainly when we were up in Edinburgh for the Fringe.

Matt had been thinking of coming back for a similar amount of time and within three days we sorted it out.

It is all very amicable and now everyone is happy.

What does the rest of the year have in store for The Noise Next Door?

This year touring is our main thing.

We’re currently doing a huge run of dates across the country.

We’re almost exclusively touring this year – as well as our regular lock-ins that happen at Komedia.

We’re going out to Dubai in September and then coming back here for more touring.

How many shows have you done now with the new/old line-up?

We’ve been gigging a lot, Charlie’s last day was Christmas so we started back up again on December 28.

How have those early shows been? Was it quite natural for you?

Yeah it was pretty seamless.

We know each other so well so it didn’t feel like anything really.

We obviously miss our mate Charlie but that is then tempered by the fact that we get our mate Matt back.

The only thing that was a little difficult is who does what, who hosts what game etc.

Do you all have your own segments?

It’s pretty easy, we like to balance it.

In a 20-minute set it’s easy because there’s time for one person to host everything.

Each segment gets one host.

In a two-hour tour show it’s all about balance.

There’s no specific leader of the group, we’re all equal.

We don’t want it to be one person hosting more than others.

If we develop a game around physicality then we will use the more physical members of the group and that goes for other topics too.

We just try to make sure we mix it up a bit.

It’s never difficult, it’s always easy to decide who gets to host segments each night.

If anyone hasn’t seen The Noise Next Door, why should they check you out this year?

They should see us because every show is different.

We do a brand new show every night depending on the audience. You will never see the same show twice. Also this is a new show so nothing we’re doing on this tour has been seem before.

There’s a lot of improv mechanics and some great scenes in store that will surprise the audiences and endear us to new viewers.