Meet Simple Town: The New York Sketch Comedy Crew Taking London by Storm

New York's Favorite Sketch Comedy Underdogs Arrive in London

When a New York comedy group with a devoted cult following crosses the Atlantic, expectations tend to run high. Visions of the next big breakout act, a golden bridge between American and British entertainment, come to mind. But spend even a short amount of time talking with Simple Town — the four-piece sketch comedy collective making waves on both sides of the pond — and those lofty assumptions quickly evaporate.

"We meet sometimes with UK production companies who see us and think we could be a great bridge to the American market," explains Sam Lanier, one of the group's core members. "But what they don't know is that no one pays attention to us in America. Everyone in American comedy development already knows who we are — and they've all passed."

Day Jobs, Dedication, and Doing It Anyway

Despite the gleaming reputation of shows like Saturday Night Live or Netflix's breakout hit I Think You Should Leave, sketch comedy in the United States is far from a reliable career path. Simple Town find themselves in the same position as many of their UK counterparts — holding down regular day jobs, producing short films alongside their live work, and keeping their collaborative project alive through sheer passion.

"We don't make a living from Simple Town at all," Lanier admits candidly. Yet the group presses on, driven by a deep belief in what they create together. "We genuinely believe that the work we've made as a group is the best work any of us has ever produced — it's far greater than anything we could have achieved individually," says Felipe Di Poi.

From Rotating Collective to Tight-Knit Four

Simple Town began as a loose, ever-changing gathering of theatre makers, comedians, and improvisers exploring everything from plays to short films. Over time, the group naturally narrowed down to those who remained truly committed. Today, the core lineup consists of Sam Lanier, Felipe Di Poi, Will Niedmann, and Caroline Yost, with director and creative collaborator Ian Faria rounding out the team.

They now describe themselves as "four teens in their 30s" — a tagline that originated from a slasher-movie parody they once produced. The phrase stuck because it perfectly captures the energetic, youthful dynamic they bring to every performance. "We think there's something genuinely funny about carrying the enthusiasm and ambition of teenagers while simultaneously feeling old and worn out," says Niedmann with a grin.

A Fringe Hit That Defied Easy Description

Simple Town made a memorable impression at last year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe, delivering a richly layered, hour-long show that drew comparisons to beloved UK sketch group Sheeps. Their set — now coming to London's Soho Theatre — is a fast-moving, genre-fluid experience that resists easy categorization. Sketches bleed into one another with apparent spontaneity, jokes dissolve before they fully land, and the structural rules seem to rewrite themselves mid-performance.

Highlights include a sharp, satirical piece featuring three NASA engineers thrown into crisis when a woman joins their team, a clever segment that gives voice to an audience member's internal thoughts, and a firing squad sketch that subtly gestures toward a fractured modern America. Nothing is labored or heavy-handed — the political undertones remain suggestions rather than statements.

"We've written some sketches that genuinely say something about what it feels like to be a young left-leaning person in America," says Niedmann. "I always push for that kind of content, but we never start there. We always start with what's funny."

Improvisation Over Script, Feeling Over Formula

What sets Simple Town apart is their evolving relationship with the written word. While they began in the highly structured tradition of the Upright Citizens Brigade — where joke beats are mapped out with precision — the group has since gravitated toward something far more fluid and alive.

"The scripted material matters less and less to us now," Niedmann explains. "What we value more is the freedom to improvise in the moment. We've developed a taste for this open, lived-in quality — dropping out of character when it feels right, doing what's instinctive rather than what's on the page."

Di Poi traces this shift back to watching performances at New York's now-shuttered Annoyance Theater. "You'd see acts where you genuinely had no idea where the joke was coming from," he recalls. "It might just be a funny way of phrasing something — and they'd lean into it, and the audience would be laughing, and nobody could quite explain why. There was this unspoken complicity happening. That felt so much less rigid and so much more surprising. That's the feeling we want our shows to create."

Comedy Made for the Love of It

If television producers aren't exactly beating down their door, Simple Town have found a loyal and enthusiastic audience among dedicated comedy fans. The group likens themselves to a band — a tight creative unit with a shared identity — though they're well aware of the financial challenges that come with splitting everything five ways.

"The realization we've come to is that this will probably never make us rich," says Niedmann. "But we keep doing it because it has brought us so much joy and has been such a meaningful thread running through our adult lives and our friendship."

Lanier is quick to add a caveat: "That said, we're absolutely open to making money from it." Di Poi nods in agreement: "If anyone wants to pay us, we are very much not going to say no."

Simple Town perform at Soho Theatre in London this month.