The Authentic Comedian

At least some of these landed - picryl.com Bombing SUCKS, there’s no way around it. It’s like being dumped by a whole room full of people. However, it’s a natural part of being a comedian. Even when you’re quite experienced you’ll still bomb, you just might shift what you consider to be bombing. You gave everyone the ick. Nobody gets what you’re going for tonight. Jokes aren’t landing. It’s a bit like being the weirdo at the party “Who invited this guy?”.

It’s been a while, eh? The thing about ADHD is things are either the most exciting thing in the world to me, or complete barf. But this seems exciting again so let’s goooo! Oxycodone for some reason - commons.wikimedia.org I dislike structure in comedy sets in general. That is, when people pretend all their bits fit together in a neat little package when they are really just a bunch of random goofs. I talk about it more here: In a 5 minute set, every word counts so don’t waste it.

I’m working on a few new articles, in the meantime here’s a banger from last year - enjoy! Attitude means simply the way in which you express yourself. It comes in two parts. The first part is your overall attitude, your persona or personality. Think about how you would describe yourself, or more accurately how others would describe you without describing your physical appearance. Are you relaxed, anxious, bubbly, aggressive, cool, needy… etc. Of course your personality can be more than one thing.

Useful lists at the end! The first gig I ever did was at the Edinburgh Festival. It was the graduation show of “Absolute & Almost Beginners” comedy class with Logan Murray. I had an enormous 1 gig under my belt, and I was already strutting around the mother-flipping Edinburgh Fringe Festival demanding open spots off people like I was the ghost of Joan Rivers. The jokes on you though because a man with no front teeth gave me a spot declaring “We need one of you(a woman)”.

Have you ever noticed that people who do wild adventure holidays are actually very boring people? Oh you bungee jumped while on Ayahuasca in Peru?? I’m literally asleep. And don’t get me started on extreme artists that set their nuts on fire or whatever. It’s cool that you like that but it’s not as interesting as you think. I *need* to be able to relate to something to like it, we all need to connect. It’s your point of view that makes a joke interesting, not the topic.

This is a re-write of an earlier article. I’ve re-written some bits for clarity. I am always very excited to share this technique with people. It's a simple way to enhance and edit your stand-up material. First I'll give a detailed explanation of the exercise, and a more concise summary will be at the end. When I am teaching my beginners class I always encourage free-form writing. I have lots of writing exercises that encourage quantity over quality, with the mantra “writing is winning”.

Hello. All of my exercises are paywalled, except this one right now! Please enjoy as it’s one of my favourites. Read this first: Write a list of things a highly judgemental person would notice about you when you walked in the room. Be specific! We can make this a world where it’s not weird that you’re somehow naked but clothed at the same time. These should all form a list of at least 10 items. Mine is: Short, but not petite, egg shaped?

If you’re trying to break into any kind of art-form there’s what I call a talent hierarchy, and it’s very unfair if you’re on the short end of it. Some people just seem to be born comedians, they have “funny bones”. They kind of have the right face and body for it, they just ooze comedy. But I do have good news for those of you with serious skeletons - it might still work out for you if this is what you want. You just need patience and grit.

This can be a philosophical question, like what is yellow or why are cats? It’s difficult to describe fully. Supposedly its purpose is to help us get through traumatic events. I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, but when my father got cancer we had a right old laugh! We loved him so much, but it was just our way of dealing with the pain. Dad: *coughs while eating a losenge* Mum: (outraged) Oh I suppose you’re going to choke now on top of it!?

To everyone competing in the Berlin New Stand-Up Award this month - have fun! And move the damn mic-stand! Other handy hints are in this article: Afterthought is a great way to tag jokes to your premises while keeping the style authentic & not too rim-shotty 🥁 Here are some afterthought ideas for you. I’ll try the first few with a premise lifted from my own notes. At the end I’ll put al the prompts into a downloadable document.