BBC World Hacks: Improvising Your Way Out Of Anxiety

You’re standing on a stage, blinded by a spotlight trained on your face, knees weak, hands sweaty. Someone from the audience calls out a random word and you have to immediately react and come up with some amusing sketch or skit. This is improv, the unscripted theatre form that seems like it would cause rather than cure anxiety.

But across North America people with the condition are signing up for special Improv For Anxiety courses, where the techniques and practices of the art are used to boost confidence.

World Hacks takes to the stage to find out whether it really works.

• Produced by Harriet Noble for BBC World Service

Publicity contact: EM3