Short-form games
World's Worst
Given a category, players step forward one at a time to deliver the worst conceivable example in a single beat.
Also known as: Worst Possible
How to run it
- Take a category from the audience — world's worst surgeon, world's worst wedding speech.
- Players stand in a line at the back.
- One at a time, a player steps forward, delivers a single line or short beat, and steps back.
- Never two players out at once. Keep the rhythm tight.
- End after ninety seconds, before the category is exhausted.
What it teaches
Economy and the courage to step out without an idea, which is the whole skill it is really training.
Coaching notes
A useful low-stakes way to practise initiating. Discourage queueing in a fixed order — the discomfort of deciding when to step out is the point.
Where it usually goes wrong. It becomes a joke-writing contest and the pace dies while everyone thinks.
Related reading: short form.
See it played
We do not link individual videos we have not watched end to end, so this is a search rather than a recommendation: World's Worst on YouTube. Quality varies enormously — prefer recordings from working theatres over tutorial channels.