The cast of the seminal 80s improv show: ‘We were in the middle of a Titanic sketch when a pipe burst and the place filled with water’ • What Does the Title Matter Anyway?: review

Josie Lawrence

This show was the beginning of everything for me. It was 1988 and they'd already done a series of it on the radio. Now Hat Trick was doing a big audition in London for a Channel 4 pilot. I was performing with Paul Merton in [improv troupe] the Comedy Store Players, so we went along together. They kept getting us to play all these different games, whittling us down. Eventually, I got a call saying: "Would you do the pilot?" I went on to film 10 series.

These were fun times. We shot the pilot out east at Limehouse studios, which no longer exist. The bar was on a boat – that led to some interesting evenings. Later, we moved to Twickenham and LWT, where they also filmed Blind Date. We'd see the candidates lining up. They were so nervous, bless them! We'd arrive in the afternoons to go into wardrobe. Early on, I made the mistake of choosing a dress – not a good idea when you might end up rolling around on the floor. I began to favour waistcoats and shirts; all very 80s. There's a clip on YouTube where I've got this massive perm. I look like a mad poodle.

We'd film for two-and-a-half hours at a time, in front of an audience – that gave us enough material for two shows and a compilation. People used to ask me whether it really was improvised. Well, it was. It would never have worked if it were scripted. I particularly enjoyed the songs. I remember doing a Sondheim-style one about a telephone, a reggae song about an ironing board, and a love song with Mike McShane about a cat-litter tray. The hat game was great fun, too. We'd each put on a different hat and pretend to be interviewed. Once, I came up with a character who'd knitted herself a hat out of body hair.

Much of the time, I was the only woman on the show. Was that challenging? No, I was a performer. I was offered a job and I did it. And after a while, we had some great women on: Jan Ravens, Sandi Toksvig, Caroline Quentin. The first series just took off, the second even more so. I remember being on the London underground one day, reading Time Out, and seeing a review of the show that said: "Josie Lawrence for president." I thought: "Ooh, bloody hell!" I got off at the next stop, found a phone booth, and called my mum and dad to say: "You know, this show's going really well!"

The cast of What Does the Title Matter Anyway? Photograph: Murdo Macleod

Greg Proops

In 1989, my friend Mike McShane called to tell me that some British improv show was auditioning in San Francisco. I missed it because I was on my way to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, to tell jokes to unhappy rednecks and even grumpier neo-Nazis at a dive of a bar called The Rocking Horse. Thank goodness the producers came back the next year. I got on the show – and never played Coeur d'Alene again.

My first episode was with tall, hilarious Josie Lawrence, the frighteningly talented John Sessions and Mike. I was thrilled, but also terrified the UK crowd wouldn't get any of my references. Or worse, that I wouldn't understand their suggestions. In the makeup room, I nervously tried on different pairs of glasses. When I showed John a pair of brown horn-rims, he said: "Those are a bit ornithological convention in Omaha."

Despite anything he might say, Clive Anderson, who hosted the show, and I always got on famously. Ragging him is so fun and easy. He is fussy, has no neck, bounces in his seat like a child, and is maybe the quickest person I've ever met. We had constant battles over everything, especially the fact that he never seemed to hear the good suggestions. Someone in the back would shout: "Shakespeare's dad!" and Clive would say: "I heard 'Hamsters!'". That drove me mad.

Ryan Stiles and I were in the middle of a scene set on the Titanic once when a pipe burst in the studio and the place filled with water. Ah, British technology.

We would drink in the dressing room after the show and occasionally sneak outside to smoke weed. Tony Slattery was the sexiest and naughtiest person in the cast. He would always whisper some vile innuendo in my ear while we were on camera. He didn't always wear pants under his fancy suits and, during one taping, his trousers split and we all saw Christmas and New Year's Eve. That part never went out on air.

Stephen Frost

One day in the late 1980s, I was invited to join the Comedy Store Players for an evening of improv. I already knew them all through gigging together, and I'd been improvising for a while, so it wasn't such a leap. The night I went along, the producer from Whose Line? was in and asked if I wanted to go on the show. I said yes right away: I'd done lots of TV, including Carrott's Lib, which was also filmed live. A show with no rehearsal or lines to learn seemed like a good thing.

A lot of people still come up to me in the street and congratulate me on the show – not on my performance, though, but on my choice of shirts. I'm usually a jeans-and-T-shirt man, but wardrobe insisted on giving me the kind of shirts John Wayne might have rejected from Stagecoach.

I met Greg Proops and Colin Mochrie for the first time at the studio. We did a few rehearsals – just who was doing what with whom and where – and then they let the audience in. I'd never improvised with either of those guys before, but it went very well. That's how I like to work: meeting someone on stage for the first time and just seeing how it goes. It's flying by the seat of your pants really.

I actually remember doing my very first scene with Colin: when it was his turn to speak, he had a look of panic in his eyes, but he came up with the goods. In the bar afterwards, I asked what he'd like to drink and he gave me exactly the same look before he answered. That's just the way he is. It's the same with Greg Proops: you feed him a line and he pauses, looks at you as if you are an idiot, then sneers out a cracking reply.

It was all great fun. Strangely, there isn't as much pressure as during a live comedy improv show, where you've got to keep it up for two continuous hours. It was great exposure and I've made some very good friends from it. They know who they are.

• What Does the Title Matter Anyway?: review