Learning from the professionals…

This week we had local stand-up Karen Bayley sitting in one the session to give us advice and share her experiences of life as a comedian doing gigs around the country. It was interesting listening to her talking about her writing processes, and the number of different notepads she keeps for different things. We were also joined by Joe Lycett towards the end of the session, who I’m going to see at Popcorn Comedy tonight.

I really enjoyed the practice performances by Andrew and Rob – I was unwittingly part of the latter’s set as part of the audience participation for testing his unique ‘invention’. I still find myself watching other people and think their stuff is much better than mine. This is probably a confidence thing, although my material does feel a little pedestrian compared with prop-featuring sets like Rob’s, and detailed storytelling like Andrew’s, though he clearly has a very interesting past to draw on.

I need to get to work on some new material and tightening up other bits very soon – it’s only six weeks until the showcase. I think I’ll probably be ok going on the stage now, although when you add in the microphone and an audience it may be a different story (nerves ahoy!), but my worry is still remembering stuff. I really need to get my act honed quickly so I can learn it as soon as possible and get comfortable with saying it, so I can think about how to perform it.

Journey into fear OR standing up and being counted

I’ve written here before of my fear of standing up in front of people and delivering the stuff that I’ve written – it’s what made me keep putting off trying my material out in front of the group the past few weeks. Other people seem to have felt a similar thing. Well, this week I finally went through with it.

I was helped by what came earlier in the session – a couple of exercises where we had to stand up in front of the group and act out emotions, to show how exaggerated actions can make things funnier, and also how the physicality of performances can get extra (and bigger) laughs. First we did this in groups – something I found very uncomfortable and embarrassing – and then we did an exercise individually which involved each telling the same joke but with a different emotion, pulled at random out of a hat. I found the latter much more comfortable than expected, although I found it difficult to know how to get the emotion across when telling the joke. Nobody guessed it but I don’t think I did THAT bad a job.

In the second half of the session I did my material in front of the group – it got a really good reaction and some quite big laughs (they are a difficult audience, and most jokes seem to get a titter at best, so I was really pleased with this). Even doing it in front of the group with the benefit of notes was a big deal for me, so I’m delighted with how it went as I got lots of very good and complimentary feedback, from the tutor and from the group. Some things didn’t really work, a couple of gags can be worked on and the routine about politics – easily the most popular part – can be expanded. I’ve already been jotting ideas down all week for how I can go further with this.

Next time I practice I won’t be able to use notes. I need to do a lot of work on my material before then, but it’s getting there and I’m so glad I did the practice run last week. The overwhelmingly positive feedback was a real confidence boost. I’m still not sure how I’m going to ‘perform’ this, as a lot of it’s quite wordy and I need to keep to a script almost. And I’m still worried about forgetting stuff at gig time. But this was a big step, and I feel like I’ve achieved something quite important already by this stage of the course.

Week 4: A big ball of nervous energy

The most recent week of the course was a break from writing material and instead looked at managing nerves, by doing an exercise where we had to think of a happy memory and use this to relax. Nerves are something I’m really worried about and especially for when I’m going to be on stage in front of people (the other worry is forgetting stuff).

Also, we watched a couple of clips – of Tim Vine and Tom Stade – to see examples of delivery, performance and how it’s sometimes possible to get laughs even when you’re not telling jokes. This made me think about how I might perform the stuff which I’m writing – a lot of it is in traditional joke formay but there are some stories and observational bits which might benefit from tweaking and using performance techniques to wring extra laughs from.

I still haven’t practiced my routine much at all, and am yet to do it in front of the group. Maybe I’ll rectify this soon.

Week three: Puns rule ok

Is it wise to second guess what an audience might find funny? That’s what I’ve been doing this week, to a certain extent. I’m find it hard to cut down material – last weekend I had a timed practice reading out the stuff I’ve written and it lasted around nine minutes. The final routine needs to be around five minutes!

I’m having to be ruthless – I’ve cut one slightly dubious gag (I think it’s quite funny but might be seen as being in poor taste so I’m not sure I should run the risk, and I’m not as confident in that joke as I am in others). And I think the section about tea is going to have to go, which is a shame but it was only really staying in before because of the Errol Flynn reference and the pay-off at the end of that segment. It’s probably far too long to be be doing in a set this short, especially when the laughs need to come thick and fast.

I’m worried about whether I have a back-up if it goes wrong. The way I’ve structured the set so far, it has a clear beginning and end and it has to pass through certain points to get to that end, plus there are some clear links between sections. I guess I need to keep paring it down until any wasted words are removed, and provided it doesn’t go too far over things should be ok. Very nervous about the idea of performing, still – I don’t know if I’m going to invite people or not. They will hopefully laugh if they do come, but I also don’t want people I know to see me fail.

Last week’s session was mostly about puns and cliches. I was quite proud of one pun I came up with from the words on the sheet we were given. Epilogue: the last tree in the woods. I wasn’t very good at getting anything out of cliches, but I’ve since written one joke which takes that kind of approach and I don’t think it’s too bad. I wonder if I’ll have room for it. I do love good puns (and some bad ones as well) but the session showed that it’s very easy to get them wrong. Writing them is a skill in itself.

When we were given the option of volunteering to perform last week, I hesitated and ended up missing out. I think it may have been for the best anyway – the material is going through constant re-writes both on paper and in my head, which should hopefully help by the time we reach the end of the course. I still can’t quite imagine performing any of this stuff in front of a live audience though, and I’m not sure how I feel about doing the internet dating stuff in front of people. Mind you, it could feasibly be made up – I don’t think anyone will believe the pirate story!

Getting started: Learning where material can come from

The second session of the stand-up course was a lot more hands-on, which is how I think it will be from now on. We did a word association game which, shamefully, I got knocked out of very early. We also did a random word generator exercise where we had to pick a word out of a hat and then talk about it for a minute. My word was ‘low’ which was very difficult but I managed to fill the time. I don’t think it was very funny though. It was mostly about depression and David Bowie.

The final exercise was looking at a double page spread from a local newspaper and spotting the things that made us laugh. I had part of the travel section, which again was pretty difficult but was surprised that there were 4 or 5 things which really amused me, because of the associations I made with them. There must be something intrinsically funny about cruises…

All of these tasks were tools to get us coming up with ideas and thinking about what we could write about. I haven’t really had the time to put any of this into practice yet though, and I wonder whether I ever will during the course. I have lots of stuff I want to work on though, and hone, so I don’t think coming up with five minutes of stuff will be a problem. Whether it’s funny is a different matter entirely, though.

James Cook, the course tutor, asked for volunteers to perform their material in front of the group. I didn’t feel I could do it this week, and I’m not sure whether I will next week – I need to feel more prepared than I do now. But I also need to get over that fear of standing in front of people and talking, and doing it sooner rather than later will probably be to my benefit. I think it depends on how I get on with working out some more material over the weekend. I’ve had a few ideas that I’ve been jotting down this week, one routine will last for a little while and was inspired by listening to a Stephen Malkmus song.

This week I’ve been doing field research too, seeing Mark Thomas at the MAC and last night went to Popcorn Comedy where I saw John-Luke Roberts (his non-specific audience insults were fantastic) and Graham Goring (I loved the way he skewered his own nerdish qualities). All very different acts but all enjoyable, and I came away thinking about different bits of their techniques. I think I’m still figuring out what kind of style I want to go for – I’m naturally drawn towards the literate, slightly oddball and aloof style that John-Luke Roberts has, as well as several of my other favourite comics, so that seems a natural way to go. But I think it requires a certain level of skill and experience to pull that off, plus also the time to really work at your jokes. Time isn’t a luxury I have much of right now, so I better get working at it very soon.

I have some material about pirates, tea, internet dating, a couple of laboured puns and a joke which I’m a little unsure as to how it’ll be received (it involves amputees, although it is certainly not a joke at their expense). Is this a sensitive topic? I don’t know. Maybe it’s the evil part of my brain at work. I might try it out on someone or even on the group next week…

Are you sitting comfortably? No? Well, I’ll start anyway…

The first week of the stand-up comedy course was an interesting evening. I bumped into a familiar face (Tim Wilson, who worked for Business Link back when Cul-de-Sac – my idea for an online West Midlands music magazine – was still in wet ink on the drawing board) and was recognised by course tutor James Cook as the man behind Who’s Laughing Now.

I found the first session quite demanding. There was a lot of admin and getting to know each other, why we were there, and all of that stuff. Plus there was a game to try to come up with jokes involving something in the news (the Beckhams) and a household object (a colander). Obviously this isn’t something that I find very easy as I couldn’t come up with anything in the time allotted (and to be honest I was more interested in grabbing a drink because the room was very warm). I guess this is something I’ll have to work on. James told us the key is to write a list of words and terms that you associate with each and see where there are connections, and that’s where you can make the joke. I’ll have to remember that.

There’s homework to do for Monday – write 3 minutes of material. I still haven’t put anything down in long form, but have been scribbling notes in a pad all week, every time a thought has come to me. I’m still at a stage where I don’t really have confidence that these ideas are a) genuinely original or b) funny but that might get better with time. I need to spend some time tomorrow hammering some of these ideas into shape and seeing what I can do with them.I think there might be a little bit of half-decent stuff in there but it needs time, skill and creative thinking to hone them so that they do the necessary work.

I think I’m still trying to find my voice, or the kind of comedy I would like to write and perform myself. I like so many different types of comedy from the perspective of a fan and also a critic, but knowing what suits your own voice seems harder to come by especially when there are so many things you’d like to be able to do. So far I’ve written a few pun-based jokes, which may or may not be very funny, came up with a great idea for a joke and then found that it had been told several times before (curses!), and jotted down a few observations and notes about things which are personal to me and that I know about.

I think it’s the latter that I’d be most comfortable with, ironically, despite my lack of stage experience and not really enjoying talking about very personal things to strangers, but it feels most natural so far. What I’ve found more difficult is hitting the jokes in those subject areas, and I suppose this will take more work during the course. As someone who doesn’t feel naturally funny, I don’t want any of my material to feel too forced, but at the same time I’d like to have written a few more jokes by this point. With having a day job, other freelance work to do and trying to squeeze in ‘life’ stuff too (not to mention needing to overcome the tiredness from commuting), I haven’t been able to devote as much time as I’d like to this yet.

I’m not looking forward to performing any of this material in front of the class just yet, as I think I need to build up to that. I think it’s going to require spending more time per week writing, practicing and remembering material if I’m going to feel able to go on a stage on April 2nd as part of the showcase, but that’s the goal. Ultimately, the two things I want to get out of the course are a) greater self-confidence and self-worth and b) good habits of writing regularly, as fiction and scripts are the main goals for the future. It’s going to be a long road to achieve both/either!

Having reviewed several stand-up comedians in the past (albeit none of them very harshly), I hope this course will give me a better insight and appreciation of the type of mentality and personality it takes to get up on stage and be funny. And this is a lesson that’s only just begun…

A cheery (festive) wave from stranded youngsters

Well, that didn’t go very well did it. Despite best intentions this blog has been left to fester once more. However! I have just signed up to the MAC’s stand-up comedy course, which starts in January. It’s compered by the rather fine James Cook and should be fun – I first heard about it from Jon Bounds, who has blogged about his experience of the course.

When I found out there was another course coming up I decided to book a place… even though it’s something I thought I’d never do. As someone who loves and writes about comedy, I go to a lot of stand-up shows and review them but have never had a go myself. So I guess now it’s time to step outside of my comfort zone and take up position somewhere on the other side of the fence. Or should that be trench?

This is a bit of an experiment, which I aim to blog about during the twelve weeks of the course. I have no pretensions to be a stand-up comedian but 1) this is more of a confidence building exercise (although it could all end in tears – both mine and the audience’s) and 2) the idea is that it will force me to write more.

My interests lie more in moving into writing comic prose/fiction and scripts, so hopefully this course will help feed into other forms of writing, away from journalism.

Anyway, hopefully this blog will be updated with how I’m getting on and might prove useful for gathering together ideas, or just logging how well/badly things are going.

Util then, Merry Christmas and all the best for 2011. And wish me luck!