Paul Foxcroft is one of UK’s finest improv comedians and on-stage Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Masters. He’s best known for the show Questing Time, a comedy show that throws working comedians into a game of Dungeons & Dragons live on stage. It returns to the stage this year, starting at the Cultplex, Manchester from 17:00 on the 16th of February.
They’ve had acts like Nish Kumar, Sophie Duker, Ed Gamble, and even national treasure Sue Perkins join them in the past, and now they’re kicking off a new run of live gigs in Manchester. We caught up with creator, host and former Ted Lasso star Paul Foxcroft.
STARBURST: How would you pitch Questing Time to an elderly relative who really likes Taskmaster?
Paul Foxcroft: Hello! I’d start with “hello” because older people seem to respect that kind of thing. We take a panel of comedians and give them each a character to control in a story that we’re all making up at the same time. So it’s like the whole cast is on a team task, but the task is something like “Rescue a pig from goblins” – then the goblins, pig and almost everyone else are played by the host, who is me.
I’m only asking this because you’re “elderly”, but did you vote for Brexit? Because if you did, you probably won’t like the show.
And how would you pitch it to a fan of Critical Role?
It’s exactly* Critical Role; if Critical Role had fewer people who knew what they were doing and a fraction of the operational budget – we would make it work. We’re a comedy show first, so our stuff tends to sillier and dumber expressions of the game – from magic items like The Unstoppable Rod to the players misunderstanding some details and accidentally granting godhood to their pet owlbear.
Oh, and I’m not Matt Mercer. I’m Paul Foxcroft. We’re profoundly different guys.
*This is a lie.
How did Questing Time happen?
I was in a critically acclaimed double act with the magnificent Cariad Lloyd, who needed a break in order to have a baby, but we had a lovely venue, and so Cariad suggested I try “That D&D thing I kept going on about”. So, the first Questing Time happened in the Summer of 2016 in a basement in London, and people liked it enough that we did it right up until the plague. Then we hopped online for two years, but in the immediate aftermath of COVID, the live comedy industry was not well… that and a lot of people who helped make the show happen had just moved on to other things. So, a break happened.
How much has changed since that initial Edinburgh Fringe show?
Two main things. Three if you count the two Trump presidencies.
First, so many more people are aware of D&D as a thing now. Even if they’re never played it. I put that down to things like Critical Role, and my good friends over at The Adventure Zone; but also shows like Stranger Things, the D&D Movie, and shows like Game of Thrones or Rings of Power – which have made a bunch of folks who didn’t think they liked fantasy… like fantasy.
Secondly, my approach to the show has evolved. I prepare a lot less for specific games but spend more time fleshing out the world. I sketch out an idea of what happens if the players don’t get involved, how things escalate… but then I largely wing it. That leaves more space for the players to do cool, interesting, weird stuff. Plus, when I did have a tight script, I wound up throwing most of it away – especially if we had Steve McNeil on the show.
Why Dungeons and Dragons and not, Pathfinder or Fighting Fantasy?
have the most hours as both a DM and a player with D&D, so it’s probably the system and lore I’m most fluent with. It’s also the game that people who don’t play TTRPGs know, at least as a reference. In the same sense that people who don’t like sci-fi still know Star Trek and its tropes. They’re the Hoover of the industry.
The other main reason? Advantage and Disadvantage. Eliminating the swarm of positive and negative modifiers that still pervade other systems and reducing them to “Just roll twice and ignore one of the dice” is such a game changer when you’re onboarding new folks. While it’s not the easiest system to teach, that takes a load off.
With that in mind, I’ve been playing a lot of the Alien RPG recently, and it is very good and really intuitive. So we might add that into the mix along with some other games I want to try with live audiences, things like; Monster of the Week, Slugblaster, Draw Steel (which I’ve done a bit of work on), Tales of the Valiant and literally anything by Rowan, Rook & Deckard.
You’ve ran D&D for some of finest folk in both Comedy and TTRPGs; what’s next?
Well, I moved to Manchester. So tricking the finest folks in comedy and TTRPGs to move to Manchester is top of the list. But we’re not shy of excellent comics up north, so we’ve a great cast booked for our first shows in our new venue – Cultplex, which is a really cool space.
Plus, we’ve got a bunch of podcast episodes in the edit at the moment, so getting that up and running is next. But I’m balancing that with teaching improv classes, doing a little work on and a very cool job in video games that I’m desperate to talk about, but literally can’t’.
Is there such a thing as the ‘best edition of Dungeons and Dragons’?
Almost certainly, but I think for most people, it’s the edition that they started with. So I’ve got very fond memories of 3rd and 3.5 – which were my introduction to D&D, with all their weird modifiers and sprawling third party sourcebooks. Those games shaped my understanding of TTRPGs along with 2nd Edition World of Darkness stuff and the early Legend of the Five Rings books. I really like 5th for being more accessible and for letting me make a living; it’s a better system than 3rd Edition. But 3rd Edition Ravenloft was my first home.
How different is this from watching D&D on a livestream?
Well, heckles work better if you’re in the room. But also, there’s a different vibe when you’re all together in the room. As a show, we get a clear and immediate response from the crowd: laughter, gasps, applause, people shouting out rules suggestions… which hits less online because it comes in text form. Plus, if we’re live, we can do stuff that wouldn’t work online for any number of reasons. The biggest advantage as a performer is that we can make eye contact – which is so fundamental to my understanding of improvisation, theatre, and communication… that’s the thing that online play can’t replicate.
As a downside, you can’t really do live shows in your pyjamas. We have to get dressed and go to a place, and that’s a hassle.
What would your ideal line-up of players be?
A ludicrously difficult question to answer. I taped a pilot episode that got swallowed up by COVID and shelved indefinitely but that had a cast I’d have loved to play with for a season: Nish Kumar, Rachel Parris, James Acaster and Emma Sidi. They were such wonderful goofs. That said, I can’t really imagine Questing Time without Briony Redman & Richard Soames, who’ve done the show more than anyone other than me.
Where else can we see you?
Not a whole lot of places these days, I’m writing a lot at the minute. But I’m working on a secret thing that we’re absolutely talking about when the NDA lapses: teaching improv classes over at Improv North, trying to edit a podcast and setting up more shows up north. Oh, I’m in episode 7 of Ted Lasso. They can’t take that away from me. Unless they use AI.
Simpsons or Futurama?
Futurama.
Picard or Kirk?
Of those two? Picard. Kirk seems like he’d be fun to have a drink with, but the man’s a liability. Free choice? Sisko.
Truth or Beauty?
Truth.
You can find out more about Questing Time on their website here and book for the show here.
