Actors are asked to improvise dialogue, make up storylines and generally misbehave in front of camera. The result? New Zealand’s most chaotic – and funniest – TV comedy.

Kura Forrester can’t help herself. Standing on stage in the assembly hall of a West Auckland school, she decides to do something about the 100 restless kids sitting in front of her. With a mischievous grin spreading across her face, she begins waving her hands to conduct them like a mock orchestra.

As their voices rise and fall in unison, their singing swells to a crescendo. Forrester fully commits to the bit, gazing at the sky and shaking like she’s having a major religious epiphany. Her grin gets even wider, she cracks up, then applauds the uniformed kids who helped her get there.

Suddenly, it’s time to get to work. “And … action!” yells Jesse Griffin. He’s the real-life conductor of the “chaos” unfolding in front of him. It’s the weekend and he has just two days to put the finishing touches on season three of Educators, TVNZ’s beyond-awkward comedy about a group of inept school teachers. 

Nailing this scene, a bonkers assembly full of student backchat, is crucial. Dozens of cast and crew and an entire hall of extras are under his spell. As cameras roll, Griffins interjects constantly. “Noah can you be a bit more open?” he says at one point. “Sorry, can we just go over that again? Be a bit … smaller,” he says at another. “Put your hand up Judy … have we got a boom over there?”

With no scripts, actors are asked to improvise in the style of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. It’s an incredibly risky style of filming. Griffin admits most shows can’t afford to take those kinds of risks. “We write story beats but when you start shooting it goes out the window,” he says. “You won’t get what you thought you’re going to get or you’ll get a whole lot of other stuff that’s better.”

He counters the show’s small budget – NZ On Air contributed $1 million for this season’s eight episodes – by finding actors up for the challenge, then crafts situations that allow them to be as funny as possible. In the two previous seasons that aired in 2019 and 2020, Tom Sainsbury, Ana Scotney and Josh Thomson were regulars. This season, there are even more cameos – including a particularly famous Australian comic.

Sometimes, though, it takes time for Griffin to mould a scene the way he wants it to go. In today’s assembly, Griffin needs Johnny Brugh, who plays principal Jarred Needham, to admit to his students that his black eye is the result of cage fighting. “Talk about how you were drifting in middle-age,” suggests Griffin. “Maybe mention the break-up of your marriage.”

After several false starts, the scene suddenly crystalises. Brugh begins riffing lines about how the brutal sport has made him feel “alive” again. “I felt an essence come back into my soul,” he says. He suggests some of his students try it, and as he organises school cage fighting lessons, some of the actors on stage with him – including Forrester, Jackie Van Beek and Rick Donald, who also play teachers – begin protesting.

For several minutes, Griffin stands back, says nothing and lets the scene run, watching the magic happen. Their improvisations force him to stifle a constant stream of giggles behind his hand. This is how, for three seasons, Griffin has made one of the most consistently funny local comedy TV shows.

After three seasons, this could be it, and he’s determined to make the most of it. “I’m happy with that. That’s nice. That’s lovely,” he tells them. Then he delivers one more note: “Esther, you need to say ‘cut’ a bit more louder, mate.”

“Come watch the chaos” is how The Spinoff was invited onto the set of Educators, which films sporadically – often over weekends and school holidays, so they can fit around student schedules in the school they film – every year. This season was even more bitsy: a storyline involving a one-episode cameo from Kath & Kim’s Magda Szubanski was initially slated for season two, but had to be rewritten and saved for season three because of Covid restrictions.

Things like that make Educators the most hectic show in Aotearoa. “I know what we’re doing about 10 minutes before we start doing it,” says Rick Donald, the Australian actor who plays passive-aggressive PE teacher Vinnie. He enjoys the unscripted nature of the show so much he’s been using the technique on shows he works on back home.

He admires how trusting Griffin is, and the results he gets. “When you watch it, you go, ‘You could never write that.’ There’s a looseness to it. It’s fresh.”

Even he’s surprised by what comes out of him. “My character’s such a volcano. He’s terrible, really mean.” Sometimes, he’s appalled by what he says to the show’s teenage actors. “They’re real kids. I tear them apart,” he says. “What’s scary is, when it’s not scripted, it’s coming out of me. I’m pulling from experience. I can’t lean on the script and go, ‘It’s in the script.'”

Donald knows he’s onto something when he sees the camera shaking, meaning the person filming his scene can’t stop laughing.

Corpsing (comedy-speak for unscripted laughter) can be a real problem. Some scenes, especially those involving most of the cast, can last up to 40 minutes without a break. Co-creator Jackie Van Beek, perfectly cast as uptight teacher Robyn Duffy, knows her triggers. “If I’ve had a couple of coffees, I’m a little bit tired, it’s post-lunch, then I’m in a really mischievous mood,” she says. “I can’t even look at Tom [Sainsbury]’s face if we’re shooting together in the afternoon.”

This season her character goes flatting with Donald’s, so they share more screen time together. She found the same thing happening. “We did back-to-back scenes for 11 hours. It was just me, him and my 73-year-old boyfriend Tony … there’s so much unusable footage because I’m just laughing. Honestly, I just have to stop  and say, ‘Look, you carry on and I’ll try and laugh quietly. At least they can use what’s on your camera.'”

This, says Griffin, just adds to the stress he feels while making the show. “It’s like we’re workshopping a TV show that we also happen to be shooting,” he says. “You’re constantly tuning it as you go. He also admits: “I’m holding it all in my head. My brain is kind of a blur … it’s an exhausting process.”

It’s also one that might not happen, at least on the set of Educators, again. Griffin isn’t sure if there’s going to be a fourth season. “That’s up to the powers that be.” He’s already onto his next thing: when he speaks to The Spinoff, he’s days away from flying to Australia to film the pilot of a cop comedy show also starring Donald.

Once again, there’s no script. Despite the brain-sapping intensity of making a TV show on the fly, of writing, directing and editing in real time, then of crafting the show in the editing suite using multiple takes of any given scene, Griffin can’t help himself. It’s the only way he can make TV now, and he’ll be filming his new show exactly the same way as Educators, constantly searching for those golden moments. “I just find it so rewarding,” he says. “I’m like a spectator watching it all on fire.”