FOR almost a decade, Quirkish Delight have been building themselves a cult reputation for hilarity, and this week sees the comedy troupe return to the Dixon Studio for another night of improvised joy.

Taking their cue from audience suggestions, there’s no set plan for the night, which could go anywhere – and indeed, the wilder the suggestions, the more the group enjoy themselves.

“If there’s something a bit weird suggested it’s probably even better for us,” admits Simon Blackman, who, along with Stevie Rae, Elsa Moore, Jeremy Battersby, Sarah Mayhew and John Oakes, makes up the group.

“If it’s something quite mundane like changing a tyre, that can be a little bit dull. But if you’ve got changing a tyre while fighting off a headless horseman, that makes it a bit more interesting – so the more strange and unpredictable the audience can be, the better it is for us really.”

Improvised comedy carries the inevitable element of risk, especially being so reliant on audience suggestions, but Simon says the tight bond the troupe has means they don’t often run into situations they can’t get out of.

“It seems like quite a daunting thing if you’re an outsider,” he says. “But you can learn routines and you’re part of a team as well. I don’t much fancy the idea of something like stand up comedy where you’re on stage on your own for any great length of time.

“We’ve been doing it for so long as a group that we can kind of predict what each other are going to do or what our strengths are. It’s a very good little working team.”

The group came out of a similar project, Scared Scriptless, that Simon and some of the other members formed after meeting through a pub theatre group, which evolved into Quirkish Delight.

“I met Elsa on my college course,” explains Simon. “And she introduced me to Sarah and a few others who were running a pub theatre at the Railway Hotel, in Southend.

“I went along one night with a little script that was never done – which was probably a good thing. Then someone came along, gave us a workshop and we went from there really.

“There’s no plan behind it, it’s just been an accident really – a happy accident.”

The group have had guests join them for special nights and Simon says, although each show they do is, by its nature, different to anything they’ve done before, they do have plans to develop the format and introduce some new ideas.

“This one has a bit of a different format,” he says. “Normally I do the hosting, but Sarah and John are going to be sharing the hosting duties – which I quite like because normally when I host it’s quite a full-on job because you have to be onstage all the time – it’s nice to share it a bit.

“It’ll probably be a good change for the audience as well – they probably get sick to death of seeing me.

“We’ve got a couple of new games we’re going to try out. It’s going to be the same – but different.”

* Quirkish Delight are at the Dixon Studio, in the Palace Theatre, London Road, Westcliff, on Friday, May 11, at 8pm. Tickets are £8. Box office: 01702 351135.