HOW TO BE A COMEDIAN

There are lots of routes to ‘funny’ and it’s likely everyone will tell you something different. They’re all wrong of course, as the definitive advice on how to unleash your humour is here, don’t tell everyone or they’ll all be doing it.

Work hard

I can’t be arsed with laziness. Comedy is like everything else, to do it well you have to put in the hours. That means taking time to write, but especially making sure you rehearse. You cannot put on a performance (your heart and comedic soul into it) until you know the ‘lines’. Go over it time and time again. This is especially important for your opening and close, make sure you know them word for word.

Try it out

Get up on stage. Do it again. Do it again (it’s that simple)

Edit

The mistake we all make first time around is to pad our material with lots of unnecessary detail. Write your comedy out in full then butcher it, take out every single thing which doesn’t add to the story or gag. The only thing all that waffle does it keep the audience a bit further away from the punchline.

Do some research

Go and watch other comics. Top names, up and comers, even the most dreadful open mic night, they all have something to teach us. By all means enjoy the comedy, but try and take a step back and think why people laugh when they do, what was the structure of the joke? There are a couple of books worth reading too, Frank Skinner’s ‘On the road’ and Stewart Lee’s ‘How I escaped my certain fate’.

Try different things

You have a comedy ‘persona’, you might not have found it yet, but it’s in there somewhere. For the majority of stand-ups this is just an exaggerated version of who they are in real life. I imagine Sean Lock is quite a cheeky chap to have a beer with, or Lee Mack amusingly sarcastic when he’s at home with the family. Character comedy is different, you can work this one out for yourself.

Be yourself

It’s okay to be influenced by others in a comedic sense, but what the audience really wants to see is you. What is it that makes you different? If this were not the case we could get a robot to deliver comedy lines, or Jim Davidson, neither would be funny.

Be original

There’s a golden rule in stand-up, you shouldn’t steal other people’s material, end of. This doesn’t stop some lazy, unfunny people from doing so, but frankly it’s not on. If you want to get a buzz from the experience, you have to originate your own stuff. If you’re still not convinced, check out this piece of classic performance from my current hero, Stewart Lee