I am often approached by new and aspiring acts for advice on how to improve or how to get started in comedy. I always try to help, offering tips, things to try and things to work on, but recently I did some thinking on the things that really helped me when I started and what I would do differently. This isn’t about how to ‘make it’ or ‘go pro’ as I haven’t done either, nor do I want to. This is some general advice about learning and improving and enjoying the journey.
Master Self-Deprecation.
Before you get on stage for the first time, before you begin writing your first set, you need to learn to be self-deprecating. Self-deprecation gives the audience permission to laugh at you; whether they are a high-status or a low-status act, the comedian should be the ultimate butt of their jokes. Sometimes it is explicit, the comedian exposes flaws or mocks their appearance; sometimes it is subtle, the character, usually an exaggerated version of ourselves, expresses themselves but is inherently absurd or something to be laughed at. Often, acts will blend these ideas together. Even acts like Stewart Lee, with a high-status, sneery character, are being self-deprecating by exaggerating a persona to be laughed at. It is a delicate balance, which is why as many people hate him as love him.
Self-deprecation disarms the audience; by mocking yourself, you are permitted to mock others. ‘Don’t dish it out, if you can’t take it,’ my Nan used to say. Many comedians subscribe to a philosophy of ‘punch up, not down’ – by which they mean that it is only acceptable to make fun of those more powerful than you and never the disenfranchised, vulnerable and marginalised in society. This is a very useful guide, identifying who the victim of a joke is will often be crucial to knowing how a riskier joke will go down. Today, many audiences will not appreciate a comedian who they feel is victimising or bullying individuals or groups and it is well worth keeping this in mind. Whether you subscribe to this belief or not, a healthy dose of self-deprecation will give you a certain license to joke about others (within the limits of the above). Masters of ‘piss-taking’ such as Paul Smith will always pick on themselves too and are very careful to only pick on those who are perceived as ‘deserving it’ such as disruptive audience members. Comedians who seek to be ‘edgy’ by regularly ‘punching down’ often forget that it is the audiences right to choose what they find funny and acceptable and what to disapprove of.
When starting out in comedy, it is worth making a list of things that you can mock yourself for and using this as a writing tool. If you are struggling to do this, speak to friends. If they are anything like mine, they will have plenty of ideas.
Watch Other Comedians.
It is important to watch other comedians but it is also important to recognise that you are not them. Being a copycat act is no fun and will not help you out very much. Carving out your own character and style is important. You are watching other acts to spot techniques, to spot joke formats and, most importantly, see what audiences like and what they don’t – that is the most important feedback any comedian can receive: audience laughter (or lack of it) should be your ultimate guide.
When I started out, I watched a lot of famous comedians on YouTube. Whilst this was helpful in some ways, it also caused me problems. I was watching a lot of acts that were very similar, which didn’t give me the breadth of experience I needed. The other mistake, which was largely unavoidable due to there being no comedy scene where I lived at the time, was that I was not watching acts performing at the level I was trying to perform at, in front of audiences similar the ones I would encounter. Doing this is crucial, it gives you a feel for joke forms and styles that work at this level, for the kind of content audiences find interesting or off-putting. Beginning to learn the type of material that either works of fails before you start performing can give you a big head start when it comes to your turn to take the mic.
Write What You Know.
Having learnt to take the micky out of yourself and having watched other grassroots comedians, it is time to begin crafting that first set. ‘I don’t know what to write about’ is a common complaint at the beginning. The mistake a lot of comedians make when they start out, and I definitely include myself in this, is the tendency to write what they think the audience wants to hear comedy about. These routines will tend towards the ‘hack’ (overused) and will often not please a discerning comedy crowd.
The best starting point, when it comes to writing, is to write jokes on subjects you are familiar with, personal passions, experiences and interests. Ask yourself what is unique about you, tie this in to the self-deprecation described above, and you have the basic premise of a routine. Write for yourself, the kind of comedy you find funny, and there should be people in the audience who enjoy it too.
‘Identity comedy’ has become a popular approach by many, for example a female comedian performs on the subject of being female, a South Asian comedian performs on the subject of being South Asian, an LGBT+ comedian performs on the subject of being LGBT+, a Northern comedian performs on the subject of being Northern. This can be a powerful tool and a fun deviation from the straight white male dominated nature of most comedy nights. It does, however, have its limitations, whilst it can make an excellent starting point, this approach runs the risk of becoming a creative limitation and must not become a hard and fast rule. It is important that every set up/punchline is not solely dependent upon the performer’s identity, as this can quickly become tedious and hack.
Writing about yourself and your interests, with a healthy dose of self-deprecation, can be an excellent starting point to building your first set. When I started out, performing heavily political material at open mic nights, I had yet to learn the importance of self-deprecation and I also had to learn that comedy is not a great political platform. Once I brought in other subject matter and learnt the importance of being the primary victim of my jokes, I became a stronger comedian. That came once I started performing regularly and learnt arguably the most important lesson in comedy: feedback.
Feedback.
Once you have written a first set, full of self-deprecation and jokes about things you know, you are ready to start performing. Get yourself on an open mic/new act night and take the plunge. Nights of this nature tend to be very laid back and friendly and other acts will usually be very supportive. You might be nervous but if you learn your material well (write prompts on your hand or a piece of paper placed on the floor), then you should be fine. Take your time, remember to pause when the audience laughs and breathe between lines.
As a comedian, there will always be people who will love you and people who will hate you, simply because humour is so varied and personal. When examining feedback, it can be helpful to ignore (to some extent) these outliers. Whether someone believes that everything you say is absolute gold or complete shite, their opinion is unlikely to help you learn very much. It is the general consensus of the audience that will benefit you the most, but sadly it is only those with the most extreme opinions who are likely to let you know how you feel. How do you get around this? Simple: record your sets and listen to them back, paying particular attention to how the audience responds. Video recordings are better still because you can see how your mannerisms, such as facial expressions and body language, may enhance or limit the delivery of a joke.
Every audience is different and a joke one audience loves might be hated by another. For this reason, it is important to try your new material at a variety of gigs in different locations. Some jokes will go down well in a cosmopolitan city with a young crowd but not in a small market town with an older, more conservative demographic. To overcome this, many comedians follow a rule where they try a joke three times, in three different locations and if it fails on each occasion, they abandon the joke.
Whilst feedback from the audience, in the form of laughter (or the lack of it), is paramount, advice from comedians can be extremely beneficial. It can help you develop new writing methods, improve existing jokes and delivery and help you to better understand how to work a difficult room. However, beware the ‘bad advice bunnies’ – comedians who give advice that is not helpful and who are not tuned into the audience. When other comedians are performing, watch them and pay attention to how the audience respond to them and use this as the measure of how seriously you should take their advice. Listen to those comedians who play the room well and not those who claim to have ‘smashed it’ when they haven’t and always remember that the audience is paramount. Even once you have started performing, keep watching other acts to see what works in different rooms and what doesn’t.
For example, at one open mic night I performed at several years ago, a very new comedian performed a set that included a string of racist jokes including an impression that would not have been out of place in an 80’s school playground. The audience were not impressed. I spoke to him afterwards, advising him that this was probably not the best direction to take in comedy. His response: ‘Bill Burr does it’. I counteracted by telling him that he wasn’t Bill Burr (I checked, he wasn’t) and that Bill Burr almost exclusively plays crowds of Bill Burr fans and does not regularly perform at a small open mic night on a Tuesday in South Bristol.
This was an individual who had, seemingly, watched a lot of Bill Burr and thought ‘I want to do that’ without seeking to understand what the audiences of open mic nights in Bristol go for. This is not an uncommon mistake. Years later, at a new material night in Leeds, I watched a comedian tell a string of paedophile jokes to silence, only for the next act to get up and do the exact same thing. A third comedian, undeterred, also got up and told paedophile jokes. This was punctuated by the MC berating a woman in the audience for being a nurse instead of a doctor. The only people laughing were the three previously mentioned comedians at the back of the room.
Keep Writing. Keep Learning.
Once you have completed your first performance and listened back to the recording, you will be in a good position to make improvements. When I write, I like to mark where I think the audience laughter will be and when I listen back, I check to see if I was correct. This shows me what pieces need improving or removing. Stand up comedy is a blend of writing and performing and this cycle of write, perform, review, edit is essential to improvement.
As you begin regularly performing, a lot of people will tell you that the most important thing to do is to get yourself a ‘solid 10 (minute set)’ and a good recording of it. You will use this video to get unpaid spots with promoters and if you perform well, may get considered for paid spots in the future – though many promoters use this promise as a mean for securing free acts to pad out a night, with little intention of genuine progression. When you are starting out, however, these gigs are an excellent opportunity to put your ‘solid 10’ to the test.
Once you have a strong 10-minute set you feel comfortable with, it is important to keep writing new material. You almost want to bank the ‘solid 10’ for use only at paid gigs or when you really want to impress and start working on a new set from scratch. The best bits from this new set can replace the weaker bits in your ‘solid 10’ and you also begin to give yourself a wider pool of material to use as you begin performing longer sets. A lot of acts with a ‘solid 10’ struggle to perform longer sets because they will simply pad it out with weaker material.
It is important to stretch yourself creatively, with different formats, styles and topic areas – especially while you are new. While I was first learning, I was lucky enough to be attending a good quality open mic on a regular basis where the stakes felt low enough that I could experiment wildly. I was writing and performing a new 5 minutes of material almost every week and brutally banking the good and discarding the poor in a continual cycle of improvement. You have to give yourself permission to learn. At this point, getting better is more important that climbing the comedy ladder.
Your comedy notepad will quickly become your best friend, an essential part of the aforementioned process. However, it is important not to be reliant on it onstage. As a rule, I am not going to book an act for a paid spot if I see them using a notepad on stage elsewhere, with the possible exception of at a new material night.
The pad is more than just a list of jokes and ideas, it is a living, breathing artefact of the learning experience. When I look back at my old notepads, I am sometimes embarrassed by some of the things I’ve written but I am also sometimes impressed with some of the ideas I have had, ideas that I have been able to revisit, revive and refine much later on, once I’ve developed additional skills.
Building Longer Sets.
A lot of comedians make the mistake of focussing so much on their ‘solid 10’ that they neglect the writing and development of new material. It is a fine balance but there comes a point where if an act is offered a longer spot, because they’ve impressed with their 10, and they haven’t got the material for a 15 or a 20, they will flop. It is very obvious when an act is padding out a 10-minute set and the audience’s attention will drift as the laughs become diluted. Working on new material is essential to building longer sets.
When performing at low-stakes gigs, I like to start with some strong material, as a sort of benchmark to compare everything else to and then bring in newer stuff to try out. You should eventually reach a point where the ‘solid 10’ is something you only perform when being paid, though you should not expect this too early.
As you develop new material, you may find yourself with enough material for a ‘secondary 10’. The common temptation is to assume that 10 + 10 = 20 and that you now have a 20-minute set. This is not the case. Comedy audiences are strange creatures and a successful longer set seems to require a structure and subtle changes of pace and rhythm that are not essential in shorter sets.
Again, it is important to watch other comedians who are performing quality, well-paced longer sets. You can see how important techniques such as call backs become, how there will be changes in form and style to keep the audience laughing. Some new material nights will have spots for acts who are pushing into longer sets, opportunities to test your developing 20. The same rules apply as with your initial 10, write, perform, feedback, improve.
Once you start performing longer sets, you will begin to see how fun they are, how rewarding it can be to play with the audience’s expectations and how satisfying it is to close off a routine with a big laugh.
As times goes on, you may start working with other acts, to push towards a 30 and eventually an hour. There seems to be a split in the comedy scene between comedians who pursue ‘the hour-long show’ and comedians who pursue 20-30 spots on professional level nights and there are also those who do both – though I imagine this must be exhausting. Regardless, finding comedy comrades who offer useful, positive feedback is critical to developing longer routines – this is why the ‘split bill’ is such a popular approach, two comedians performing half an hour each.
Mental Health.
Stand up comedy can be hard work, an all consuming and draining activity. There are more than a few difficult characters on the scene and you are constantly dealing with rejection. A bad gig can knock your confidence but even the high from a good gig is often followed by a comedown. With that in mind, I’d like to share some tips for managing your mental health while involved in stand up.
Build genuine friendships with people you meet on the scene that are not entirely based around comedy. The comedy network is full of great people, so find some that you can hang out with, trust and talk to. This will give you a place to vent when things are tough but it will also give you another perspective. Crucially, build friendships that are not solely based on comedy, people who you talk about and do other things with. I am grateful to the people I’ve met through comedy who I genuinely enjoy spending time with and chatting about football, TV, politics or playing board games without comedy coming up very often. My mum always taught me to ‘be the kind of friend I want to have’.
The 11am rule is a principle many comedians follow and means that if a gig goes badly, you need to stop feeling bad about it by 11am the next morning. That doesn’t mean you can’t look at what went wrong and seek to improve after that, but you have to stop beating yourself up by then. Conversely, if a gig went well, to keep yourself humble you have to stop feeling smug about it by 11am the next day too.
Patience and perspective are two crucial tools in the comedy world. Firstly, you cannot expect to become an overnight sensation, comedy is about the grind, it is about the hard work of getting good. No one goes from their first piano lesson to the Albert Hall in a matter of weeks. You have to put in the effort of learning and understand that the only way to do that is with gig after gig after gig – many of them will be awful.
Secondly, it is important to retain some sort of balance in your life. Many are the stories of comedians who lose everything in their pursuit of going pro, including their families. Comedy starts out as a hobby for everyone, for some lucky people it turns into a career, but no career is worth sacrificing your world for. It is important to have a life outside of comedy: friends, family, hobbies, interests. I am lucky enough to work in an industry I love and have never really wanted to be a full-time comedy pro. I also love writing in other media, photography, walking and other outdoor pursuits. I have a wife I love spending time with and I have no intention of sacrificing any of the above for what may turn out to be a pipe-dream.
Remember that the comedy scene is full of hurting people and hurting people hurt people, not intentionally but because of their own suffering. The comedy forums are full of arguments and bitterness and it is important to keep perspective on it all, step back and try not to let all the infighting get you down. That said, some people are just dicks and are worth avoiding.
Take time off. Many people fear doing this because they worry that even a few weeks away from comedy will see them fall behind in the eternal rat race to stardom. Breaks are crucial to your mental health in any setting. Don’t be afraid of taking a summer off from comedy or setting aside a month at a quiet time of the year, to rest, recuperate and write. You will be better for it and your comedy will end up better for it too and so will every other part of your life. I am currently taking a break at the moment and it has given me a freshness I haven’t felt in a long time. I am enjoying my job more; I am enjoying my home and my hobbies more and I’m spending time on other creative projects that I’ve neglected.