It’s been three years since Steve Carell signed off from “The Office,” but his next TV project is taking the actor back to his improv roots.
Carell is producing “Riot,” a new improv comedy series premiering Tuesday at 9 p.m. on Fox. The show has a rotating panel of comics and two celebrity guests performing sketch challenges — often on the show’s set, which is tilted at a 22-degree angle.
Hosted by Australian comedian and talk show host Rove McManus — best known in the US for his correspondent work on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” — the format promises unpredictability. Because it’s all improvised, there are no rehearsals and no second takes.
“Improv on its own lends itself to such spontaneity, but then the circumstances that we put our performers in take that to another level,” McManus tells The Post.
That includes the show’s trademark sketch, “Slide Show,” which has the performers act out a scene on the titled stage (the camera is rotated to make the set look level to viewers at home) while they struggle to maintain their footing.
Other games in the premiere have physical consequences for a wrong answer — like performers being jerked to the ceiling on a wire or getting knocked off a platform by a wrecking ball.
Carell appears only in Tuesday night’s premiere episode (though he was in-studio for most tapings) along with his “Office” co-star Andy Buckley. Future celebrity guests in the eight-episode season include Jason Alexander, DL Hughley, Cheryl Hines, Tom Green, Chris Kattan, Mayim Bialik and David Arquette.
The changing guest lineup ensures a different dynamic each week, even as games are repeated. While some guests, like Carell, bring an improv background with them, others are stand-ups, or, in the case of Bialik (“The Big Bang Theory”), just a comedic actress.
“She was probably the one who was most nervous because she had never performed in this type of environment before,” McManus says. “She is used to having a script — that’s the one thing we don’t give our performers.”
Lending support to the celebs in each episode are four skilled improv comics, and while points are awarded to keep the games moving, there are no winners or losers — the only competition is for laughs.
Other games — like “Alphabody,” where players use their bodies to spell out the letters of a word, or “Shadow Puppets,” where they act out the title of a movie with props behind a screen — even allow the viewer to play along at home.
As McManus says, “It’s always nice to feel you’re smarter than celebrities.”