Stand-up comedy workshop #1
October 24th 2007 01:32
This sounds like the start of a joke, but I'm currently taking a four-week stand-up course.
Thought I might as well stick some notes up from the random and contradictory advice of the four presenters.
Examples (to get a feel for diversity of styles)
Comedians: --
-- US -- Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, Arj Barker.
-- UK -- Danny Bhoy, Josie Long, Ed Byrne, Eddie Izzard.
Examples of comedy styles: -- Carl Baron (observational / Australian), Dave Hughes (laconic Australian), Ross Noble / Billy Connolly (improviser / storyteller), Wil Anderson (social commentary), Fiona O’Loughlin (family / observational), Adam Hills (observational).
Sketch / physical / character-based: -- French and Saunders, Comedy Inc, The Wedge, Little Britain, Dave Chapelle, Saturday Night Live, Umbilical Brothers, Real Stories, Kath and Kim, We can Be Heroes, Barry Humphries, Wilfred, Lenny Henry, Dead Ringers.
Musical parody: -- Tripod, Lano and Woodley.
Improvisation: -- Thank God You’re Here, Whose Line Is It Anyway?
General
* Course began with presenters doing "Why did the chicken cross the road?" in the style of different comedians. Compare Steve Wright deadpan with Jim Carrey's animation with Dennis Leary's anger with Bill Bailey's musical numbers.
* Even if it fails, try something new -- try doing the whole set in French -- and even if you get it half right, audiences will respect you for that, will think you're brave just for getting up on stage.
* New comics tend to start with toilet humour.
* What is the vulgarity line? What is the offensiveness line? -- Mel Brooks said something like, If it's funny, it's funny.
* There is material you have to be careful about; the big one at the moment is race. In some rooms people attack race-based jokes. Unless you're from that culture, it can be a no go area. If it's edgy, take a step back and ask yourself how you'd feel if you were in the audience. One of the presenters had experienced making a joke about cancer, and causing five people to leave the room. Another had joked about pedophiles: "Ten people laughed, and they were mates, and the other 90 wanted to kill me." If it's edgy, run it past someone first. You can do dead baby jokes as long as they're not about real babies. Southpark reckons that after 20 years it's okay to joke about it -- eg, AIDS. And only now can you do 9/11 jokes, whereas audiences rioted when people tried this previously.
* Don't overdo swearing, unless you have a Scottish accent. "Fuck" is an impact word; using it too many times can negate the effect. Avoid the c-word completely. It's a matter of context -- more swearing is okay if it's an RSL show, and everyone's a bit pissed and pretty Aussie -- but it can wreck your act in a smaller room.
* Topics done to death would include: cats and dogs, men and women, Asian drivers, and aeroplane food. And everyone's doing Osama jokes, so if you want to do them, you have to take the idea, tweak it, and find new angles.
* Intellectual property. There's nothing worse than hearing a joke you've heard before, but it happens all the time that someone else has already come up with an idea. For instance, said one presenter, I was thinking about how "innuendo" sounds like "in your end oh", and then someone told me that there were three Sydney comics who were already using it, and it had also appeared on an episode of Scrubs.
* Don't tell a professional comic that you've heard their material before; they can be very precious about stuff like that.
* Margaret Cho doesn't use punch lines, but simply tells a story, being the different characters. But, said one presenter, I hate people who do impersonations without knowing how to set up the joke -- don't just do the impersonation for the hell of it without the joke.
* In the Raw Comedy competition, it usually takes one set for the audience to warm up; the middle brackets do well; then the last one suffers.
* Mention was made of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry doesn't want to go after a particular comedian, because he knows the guy will tank, and the crowd will be pissed off by the time it's Jerry's turn.
* When you start going to a venue, you get used to the people who go there. And locations do differ -- there are sophisticated and unsophisticated crowds, etc.
* Chris Wainhouse has written "You're gonna die in the ass" on a wall in the backstage area of Sydney's Comedy Store, and it freaks people out just before they go on stage.
Writing
* If something actually happened, it's funnier.
* Normally there's a premise, a set up, and a punchline.
* There are shorter and longer ways of doing a joke.
* Carry a notebook with you; when something funny occurs to you, write it down immediately, or you'll lose it.
* Said one presenter: when I write, hear, or see something -- for instance, a news article -- that I think could be funny, I make a note of it, and leave it for a while, then come back, toss it around a bit, and sometimes gold strikes me straight away -- the first time you think about it you've got a punchline -- and other times I just have to mull it over.
* Pick a topic that feels like it's got some comic gold to mine. Eg Howard wanting the "worm" to be excluded from the debate with Rudd, or Ben Cousins and drugs, or the war on terror, or Xiang Xiang, the first panda raised in captivity and released into the wild, who was killed by fellow pandas.
* You know there's something funny there, it's just a matter of exploring, mixing it up, trying different angles. You just keep on plugging away.
* You can look at the advantages and disadvantages of things -- eg, the plusses and minuses of going to jail.
* Brainstorm. Explore from different angles. For instance, with Xiang Xiang, maybe the zoo was like a prison, the panda is institutionalized, and couldn't hack it in the real world. Or maybe Xiang Xiang was making a prison escape. Or maybe he wasn't "street" enough to cope -- the other pandas are tattooed gangsters standing on a corner smoking and talking jive. Xiang Xiang is a dorky guy who comes along and says, "Hi, the humans said we should all make friends, where's all the free food and photographers?". Perhaps, in Richard Pryor fashion, you could do impersonations of the different pandas involved. Or maybe you could do the whole thing deadpan. -- With war on terror, perhaps you could do a bit on Abu Ghraib and how bizarre naked human pyramids are. What is the deal there? Where would anyone come up with the idea in the first place? Was there a Swedish officer who'd worked for Ikea and was trying to save space? And if Dick Cheney came along for an inspection, how would you justify it to him? "This is a just a work of modern art." Maybe you could do a Ricky Gervais-type character trying to explain away the different things...
* Research it, get all the names right, Google it. And when you're researching, you normally find another three things to make it funnier.
* Find what you think is funny, then put it into a style that works for you.
* After you've been writing for a while, eventually you end up with bits and pieces -- lots of separate jokes. And then you start chopping and changing, keeping the jokes you like, and trying to segue from one joke to another. Developing a routine is a long evolution, a long process of trial and error.
* A lot of people generate only 20% new material each year.
* A lot of professionals do just one new show per year.
Performing
* No one has done every gig well.
* Don't underestimate the dynamics of a room. The exact same joke performed the exact same way can kill or die: sometimes the crowd is not with you, maybe it's a rainy night and no one wants to be there... If there's only a few people in the room, they'll be too shy or embarrassed to laugh -- there is a critical mass for laughter -- you need a minimum of five or six people.
* Sometimes they'll like it and have a good time even if they're not laughing. They might still be smiling, amused, etc.
* Given the variation between crowds, you can't anticipate what people want to hear and how they'll react. If you think it's funny, write it down, and perform it. And perform the joke the same way in front of four people as in front of fifty (interesting advice; I would've thought you could adapt, but the way they talk about it, it seems like a much more random, unpredictable thing -- you really don't have much control over people's responses).
* Sometimes the room will be broken up into pockets of people pissing themselves, and other pockets where it's just dead.
* You'll find something that will hit the audience and it won't be what you were expecting.
* If your joke's smart, don't be afraid to say it and pause.
* You often can't hear the laughter from where you're standing. So mark the pauses in your routine. Hold them for several seconds; and count the seconds in your head. The classic mistake of new comics is to go too fast and to talk over people who are laughing. Particularly if a joke requires a little bit of thought, people will need at least two and half to three seconds to process, or they'll miss their laugh.
* If you have the conviction to stand and wait, people will start laughing. A lot of it is confidence. Some comedians have a cocky attitude where their body language goes, "Yeah, laugh now" -- a contagious belief in their material.
* If you don't move around much, if you're not that animated, it implies you know your material is strong enough.
* The more calmly you talk about something ridiculous, the funnier it is.
* If you fail, fail gloriously. The short and cheap way to get laughs is to acknowledge "Well that doesn't work". It's amazing how well this gets laughs. "That worked better yesterday."
* Always listen to the comic before you -- you can get a warm up joke referring to their routine. Eg if it was a stinker about necrophilia, simply say "Ok, how do we follow that one", etc.
Dealing with hecklers
* Basically don't worry about them. Someone who does it is either drunk or wants to be a comic themselves. The worst thing you can do is pay attention.
* You can reply to the heckler when you get more experienced, or even prepare comebacks in advance.
* The traditional comeback is: "Hey, mate, I'm trying to work here. I don't come to your job and knock the cocks out of your mouth."
* Ignore it or say "Thanks mate" and move on.
* Just answer it, agree with them, and then you can move on.
* Most of the time heckling is a good thing, because people are engaging with you.
* MCs will generally put them in their place very quickly.
* "I've never seen people at an open mike gig get heckled that badly. Only with paid comics does it happen."
* A good MC will support new comics, might warm the crowd up beforehand with -- "Show some love, show some respect, this is his first time on stage."
* If one guy heckles the first comic, often the guy who goes next, particularly if they're experienced, will put the heckler in their place.
* It's amazing what you can come up with on the spur of the moment; replies to hecklers can be the funniest part of a show.
* The crowd is already on your side. If the heckler keeps going, people around them will start getting cranky with them, and eventually they'll be asked to leave.
* Allow a certain amount of time to deal with the heckler. If they keep going, then just drop it. A normal routine makes a joke every five to ten seconds, so don't spend time on the heckler -- it uses up the time for your set -- they're stealing jokes from you.
Improving
* Practice, practice, practice. Go to as many five-minute open mike gigs as you can. You gradually build up confidence. Better to fail gloriously, and to get comfortable.
* Enter the Raw Comedy comp -- all competitions are just a chance to perform and have fun, and to see people performing and MCing.
* Watch as much comedy as you can, and find one thing you can take on board from each act. Eg the way Bill Bailey's eyeballs pop out.
* The more you do, the more you write jokes, rehearse, do gigs, the more ideas you'll have, the more your mind will switch into comic mode. Momentum builds. It will then be a question of striking a balance between doing shows and preparing for shows.
* Don't be afraid of trying new stuff at open mike nights.
* Ask people for feedback -- most comedians are friendly, and will happily give advice. In particular, ask the MC -- he/she will see x number of new comedians every week at open mike gigs.
* Filming yourself, and watching the tape afterwards, is the best way to improve.
Some random thoughts from Mr Neil Hamburger
"Fat guys tend to laugh pretty hard. Those are my heroes. Some of the people who are alcoholics or have a chemical imbalance or mental issues. And then there's the giggling girls. You've got to love the giggling girls because they can light up a room. You see these pretty young girls giggling and although they're not the hearty laughs of a fat man they're better because they're sweet giggles of someone whose face really lights up the whole room."
-- from an interview with Ben Karakh, Monday 10 September 2007.
"I'd say the smaller crowds are generally easier [to please], because they can't make as much noise and try to drown you out during your routine."
-- from another interview, this time with Tom Scharpling, 1997
And this is how Neil Hamburger deals with hecklers:
" How much was it to get into this? Ten dollars? So you guys paid ten dollars, you two? So if we got 5c from everyone here, that would be enough to refund your money and throw you guys out on the street?" Etc.
Thought I might as well stick some notes up from the random and contradictory advice of the four presenters.
***
Examples (to get a feel for diversity of styles)
Comedians: --
-- US -- Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, Arj Barker.
-- UK -- Danny Bhoy, Josie Long, Ed Byrne, Eddie Izzard.
Examples of comedy styles: -- Carl Baron (observational / Australian), Dave Hughes (laconic Australian), Ross Noble / Billy Connolly (improviser / storyteller), Wil Anderson (social commentary), Fiona O’Loughlin (family / observational), Adam Hills (observational).
Sketch / physical / character-based: -- French and Saunders, Comedy Inc, The Wedge, Little Britain, Dave Chapelle, Saturday Night Live, Umbilical Brothers, Real Stories, Kath and Kim, We can Be Heroes, Barry Humphries, Wilfred, Lenny Henry, Dead Ringers.
Musical parody: -- Tripod, Lano and Woodley.
Improvisation: -- Thank God You’re Here, Whose Line Is It Anyway?
General
* Course began with presenters doing "Why did the chicken cross the road?" in the style of different comedians. Compare Steve Wright deadpan with Jim Carrey's animation with Dennis Leary's anger with Bill Bailey's musical numbers.
* Even if it fails, try something new -- try doing the whole set in French -- and even if you get it half right, audiences will respect you for that, will think you're brave just for getting up on stage.
* New comics tend to start with toilet humour.
* What is the vulgarity line? What is the offensiveness line? -- Mel Brooks said something like, If it's funny, it's funny.
The late great Bill Hicks (1961-1994) -- who would go where other comics wouldn't
* Don't overdo swearing, unless you have a Scottish accent. "Fuck" is an impact word; using it too many times can negate the effect. Avoid the c-word completely. It's a matter of context -- more swearing is okay if it's an RSL show, and everyone's a bit pissed and pretty Aussie -- but it can wreck your act in a smaller room.
* Topics done to death would include: cats and dogs, men and women, Asian drivers, and aeroplane food. And everyone's doing Osama jokes, so if you want to do them, you have to take the idea, tweak it, and find new angles.
* Intellectual property. There's nothing worse than hearing a joke you've heard before, but it happens all the time that someone else has already come up with an idea. For instance, said one presenter, I was thinking about how "innuendo" sounds like "in your end oh", and then someone told me that there were three Sydney comics who were already using it, and it had also appeared on an episode of Scrubs.
* Don't tell a professional comic that you've heard their material before; they can be very precious about stuff like that.
* Margaret Cho doesn't use punch lines, but simply tells a story, being the different characters. But, said one presenter, I hate people who do impersonations without knowing how to set up the joke -- don't just do the impersonation for the hell of it without the joke.
* In the Raw Comedy competition, it usually takes one set for the audience to warm up; the middle brackets do well; then the last one suffers.
* Mention was made of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry doesn't want to go after a particular comedian, because he knows the guy will tank, and the crowd will be pissed off by the time it's Jerry's turn.
* When you start going to a venue, you get used to the people who go there. And locations do differ -- there are sophisticated and unsophisticated crowds, etc.
* Chris Wainhouse has written "You're gonna die in the ass" on a wall in the backstage area of Sydney's Comedy Store, and it freaks people out just before they go on stage.
Dave 'I'm hairy and Irish' Callan at the Comedy Store
Writing
* If something actually happened, it's funnier.
* Normally there's a premise, a set up, and a punchline.
* There are shorter and longer ways of doing a joke.
* Carry a notebook with you; when something funny occurs to you, write it down immediately, or you'll lose it.
* Said one presenter: when I write, hear, or see something -- for instance, a news article -- that I think could be funny, I make a note of it, and leave it for a while, then come back, toss it around a bit, and sometimes gold strikes me straight away -- the first time you think about it you've got a punchline -- and other times I just have to mull it over.
* Pick a topic that feels like it's got some comic gold to mine. Eg Howard wanting the "worm" to be excluded from the debate with Rudd, or Ben Cousins and drugs, or the war on terror, or Xiang Xiang, the first panda raised in captivity and released into the wild, who was killed by fellow pandas.
* You know there's something funny there, it's just a matter of exploring, mixing it up, trying different angles. You just keep on plugging away.
* You can look at the advantages and disadvantages of things -- eg, the plusses and minuses of going to jail.
Xiang Xiang (2001-2007)
* Research it, get all the names right, Google it. And when you're researching, you normally find another three things to make it funnier.
* Find what you think is funny, then put it into a style that works for you.
* After you've been writing for a while, eventually you end up with bits and pieces -- lots of separate jokes. And then you start chopping and changing, keeping the jokes you like, and trying to segue from one joke to another. Developing a routine is a long evolution, a long process of trial and error.
* A lot of people generate only 20% new material each year.
* A lot of professionals do just one new show per year.
Performing
* No one has done every gig well.
* Don't underestimate the dynamics of a room. The exact same joke performed the exact same way can kill or die: sometimes the crowd is not with you, maybe it's a rainy night and no one wants to be there... If there's only a few people in the room, they'll be too shy or embarrassed to laugh -- there is a critical mass for laughter -- you need a minimum of five or six people.
* Sometimes they'll like it and have a good time even if they're not laughing. They might still be smiling, amused, etc.
* Given the variation between crowds, you can't anticipate what people want to hear and how they'll react. If you think it's funny, write it down, and perform it. And perform the joke the same way in front of four people as in front of fifty (interesting advice; I would've thought you could adapt, but the way they talk about it, it seems like a much more random, unpredictable thing -- you really don't have much control over people's responses).
* Sometimes the room will be broken up into pockets of people pissing themselves, and other pockets where it's just dead.
* You'll find something that will hit the audience and it won't be what you were expecting.
* If your joke's smart, don't be afraid to say it and pause.
* You often can't hear the laughter from where you're standing. So mark the pauses in your routine. Hold them for several seconds; and count the seconds in your head. The classic mistake of new comics is to go too fast and to talk over people who are laughing. Particularly if a joke requires a little bit of thought, people will need at least two and half to three seconds to process, or they'll miss their laugh.
* If you have the conviction to stand and wait, people will start laughing. A lot of it is confidence. Some comedians have a cocky attitude where their body language goes, "Yeah, laugh now" -- a contagious belief in their material.
* If you don't move around much, if you're not that animated, it implies you know your material is strong enough.
* The more calmly you talk about something ridiculous, the funnier it is.
* If you fail, fail gloriously. The short and cheap way to get laughs is to acknowledge "Well that doesn't work". It's amazing how well this gets laughs. "That worked better yesterday."
* Always listen to the comic before you -- you can get a warm up joke referring to their routine. Eg if it was a stinker about necrophilia, simply say "Ok, how do we follow that one", etc.
Dealing with hecklers
How not to deal with hecklers...
* You can reply to the heckler when you get more experienced, or even prepare comebacks in advance.
* The traditional comeback is: "Hey, mate, I'm trying to work here. I don't come to your job and knock the cocks out of your mouth."
* Ignore it or say "Thanks mate" and move on.
* Just answer it, agree with them, and then you can move on.
* Most of the time heckling is a good thing, because people are engaging with you.
* MCs will generally put them in their place very quickly.
* "I've never seen people at an open mike gig get heckled that badly. Only with paid comics does it happen."
* A good MC will support new comics, might warm the crowd up beforehand with -- "Show some love, show some respect, this is his first time on stage."
* If one guy heckles the first comic, often the guy who goes next, particularly if they're experienced, will put the heckler in their place.
* It's amazing what you can come up with on the spur of the moment; replies to hecklers can be the funniest part of a show.
* The crowd is already on your side. If the heckler keeps going, people around them will start getting cranky with them, and eventually they'll be asked to leave.
* Allow a certain amount of time to deal with the heckler. If they keep going, then just drop it. A normal routine makes a joke every five to ten seconds, so don't spend time on the heckler -- it uses up the time for your set -- they're stealing jokes from you.
Improving
* Practice, practice, practice. Go to as many five-minute open mike gigs as you can. You gradually build up confidence. Better to fail gloriously, and to get comfortable.
* Enter the Raw Comedy comp -- all competitions are just a chance to perform and have fun, and to see people performing and MCing.
* Watch as much comedy as you can, and find one thing you can take on board from each act. Eg the way Bill Bailey's eyeballs pop out.
* The more you do, the more you write jokes, rehearse, do gigs, the more ideas you'll have, the more your mind will switch into comic mode. Momentum builds. It will then be a question of striking a balance between doing shows and preparing for shows.
* Don't be afraid of trying new stuff at open mike nights.
* Ask people for feedback -- most comedians are friendly, and will happily give advice. In particular, ask the MC -- he/she will see x number of new comedians every week at open mike gigs.
* Filming yourself, and watching the tape afterwards, is the best way to improve.
Some random thoughts from Mr Neil Hamburger
"Fat guys tend to laugh pretty hard. Those are my heroes. Some of the people who are alcoholics or have a chemical imbalance or mental issues. And then there's the giggling girls. You've got to love the giggling girls because they can light up a room. You see these pretty young girls giggling and although they're not the hearty laughs of a fat man they're better because they're sweet giggles of someone whose face really lights up the whole room."
-- from an interview with Ben Karakh, Monday 10 September 2007.
"I'd say the smaller crowds are generally easier [to please], because they can't make as much noise and try to drown you out during your routine."
-- from another interview, this time with Tom Scharpling, 1997
And this is how Neil Hamburger deals with hecklers:
" How much was it to get into this? Ten dollars? So you guys paid ten dollars, you two? So if we got 5c from everyone here, that would be enough to refund your money and throw you guys out on the street?" Etc.
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Philosophy Blog
Probably minimal philosophical content in this one, I have to admit. Though the question of what is humour, what makes people laugh, etc, are matters that most of the big-name dead-white-male philosophers have written on...