Portsmouth Theatre Royal

As Suki Webster says, improvisation is a little bit like parachute jumping – not that she would ever go parachute jumping herself, she’s quick to point out.

“But I imagine it's that thrill of doing it that makes you do it, and that's what we love about improvisation.”

To which Paul Merton quickly adds: “I went parachute jumping once. I forgot to pack the parachute. Never again!”

A little taste perhaps of the kind of comedy in store when Paul and Suki combine once again for the Paul Merton & Suki Webster’s Improv Show, with dates including September 30 at Portsmouth Theatre Royal

It’s an art form they are happy to discuss. As Suki says: “I think you do have to trust your instincts, but the more you do it, I think the more relaxed you become and the happier you get doing it.

“It started for me when someone very handsome invited me to a workshop. It wasn't Paul actually! But I went along and I found that the workshop was far more interesting than the man, and it was just something that I started doing. Somebody said that anybody can dance but you wouldn't want to watch everybody dance, and I think it's a little bit the same with improv.”

Paul agrees: “There is a mystique about it. I was doing a show up at the Edinburgh Festival in 1985, and there were a couple people there that I knew, Neil Mullarkey and Mike Myers, and Mike was saying why aren't there any improv clubs in London, and there weren't. There were clubs in Chicago and New York. And so I tried it and the first gig that I did with Mike Myers, he was just so accomplished that I thought I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to do this.”

But Paul was doing stand-up at the time and the thought of moving into an area where there was no script and where there was so much freedom appealed.

But the point is, as Paul sees it, is that we are all actually improvising all the time: “We are improvising now as we are speaking, and you improvise as you drive, as you go along. You don't drive in exactly the same way as you did yesterday. The difference is obviously that with this you have to add a layer of comedy to it.”

And in that sense, as Suki says, there are not so much rules as principles that you have to follow: “I think one thing you have to do and think about is saying ‘yes and’. You say ‘yes’ to keep something going and you say ‘and’ to take it somewhere.”

It is also about working together, as Paul says: “If you are doing something and you're supposed to be in a greengrocers, then the other person doesn't suddenly say ‘I am now in a spaceship!’ You can disagree and you can change things but you’ve still got to follow those principles. You don't just throw out what the other person has done.”

Inevitably the fact that they have worked so much together is hugely in their favour, but also they are working with the audience and depend on audience suggestions – though these are not always perhaps quite as original as the audience wants to believe.

Suki says: “I was asking for a household object and the thing that people used to say so much was a spatula. But then I think a spatula is just a naturally very funny word.”

Also helping is the fact that you can always recover, as Paul says: “If someone gets stuck for a moment then you can always ask for another emotion or another film star depending on what you're doing, and if you get stuck then the other person on stage will always help you. It's something that's constantly moving and changing, just by the very nature of the fact that it is improv.”