British improv actor Simon Lukacs brings his cathartic comedy to Amsterdam
Improvisational comedian Simon Lukacs lived in England his entire life before relocating to Amsterdam as a 35-year-old to join the infamous cast at comedy club Boom Chicago in 2018. Having worked as a professional improv performer for nine years, Lukacs is no stranger to productions big and small.
After the coronavirus pandemic, he devised a concept to invite performers to share sad and heartbreaking stories on stage with the help of a cast of improvisers. The show, Tragedy Plus Time, had three sold-out runs in 2023 and 2024, and could eventually return to the stage. Famous guests included Ted Lasso’s Brendan Hunt, Rick and Morty head writer Heather-Anne Campbell, One Day’s Ambika Mod, and comedians Phil Wang and Marcus Brigstocke.
Lukacs himself has been seen on BBC3 and Dutch satirical news program, Zondag met Lubach. The comedian sat down the Dam Yankee podcast, in partnership with NL Times, to chat about how he got his start, divulge his comedy influences, and pull the curtain back on improv secrets.
Dam Yankee: Were you always funny?
Simon Lukacs: I think I’ve always leaned on humor. It’s kind of been my social currency, really. It's always been the way I’ve navigated interactions. Humor’s been my tool for connecting with people. I wouldn’t call myself the class clown exactly because I don’t think I was disruptive.
But making a joke was always my go-to move. Especially self-deprecating jokes. I’m not sure how healthy that is, but at 42 years old, it feels a bit too deeply embedded in who I am to change it now.
DY: Growing up in England, how did you get into improv comedy?
SL: This is probably a cliché answer, but I loved Whose Line Is It Anyway. I’m talking about the '90s British version. But even then, I never saw improv as something you could actually do. In the UK, it still wasn’t that big back then, especially not compared to how it is now. Particularly the Chicago-style long-form improv. I don’t think that really made its way to the UK until maybe the late 2000s.
Then, I did a theatre degree at university, and I remember a friend of mine telling me about this improv class he’d taken. He said it was really good and gave me a flyer. I remembered the name, but I didn’t end up going for another four years or so. Then one day I just thought, you know what? I’m going to try that improv class.
So I took it, and I found I really enjoyed it. And not to sound too egotistical, but I also quickly found I was actually pretty good at it too. So it sort of snowballed from there into something I could do, at least, as a skilled amateur.
DY: Your show, Tragedy Plus Time, asked guests to come in and tell true, sad, and tragic stories from their lives. The central question of the show being: Can we turn pain into really funny comedy? What was the audience’s response?
SL: The response to the show was really, really good. It felt like a special show. I think people responded to the vulnerability and the openness of the stories. People have said they found it cathartic. This idea that this stuff is sad and bad, but we can explore it with lightness and humor as well.
We did three runs of it at Boom Chicago. It’s on a little bit of a hiatus at the moment. I hope to bring it back at some point — only because it can be quite an intense show to do sometimes, since we deal with quite sad subject matter. But yeah, it felt like a special show, and we’ve been very lucky to have some great guests.
DY: I can imagine you’ve had a lot of disarming suggestions from the audience as an improv comedian over the years. Is there one that sticks out in your mind?
SL: We have a standard joke to deal with “dildo” being shouted out, because it gets shouted out a lot. A lot. There’s a game we play where we take suggestions of genres and emotions from the audience. Then two people play a scene, and we shout out these genres and emotions. They have to change the scene based on that.
And without fail, in every show, somebody suggests “horny” as an emotion and “porn” as a genre. I’m not even joking. Every show. To the point where we’ve built in a joke to deal with it. It’s a moment where we get the technicians to bring the house lights up, and we ask, “Who said that?” Then we shame the person. And if someone says “porn” again later in the same run, which they often do, we bring the lights up again and say, “You too.”
Listen to this entire episode of Dam Yankee wherever you get your podcasts, or watch the full videos on YouTube. Simon Lukacs goes on to describe what it was like being cast in the role of Ebanezer Scrooge as a young boy and the new perspective he gained from life in Amsterdam.
If you want to make an audience suggestion yourself, you can catch Simon on stage every Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday nights at Boom Chicago with tickets costing between 23.50 and 28.50 euros. Those feeling brave enough can sign up for one of his classes!
Lukacs also performs in an indie improv night once a month called Good Egg Improv. This month they will welcome guests from the renowned Chicago improv and sketch comedy group, Upright Citizen’s Brigade. You can follow all of his endeavors on his Instagram page @lukacssimon.
