Hello everyone, I'm going to be performing my first ever stand up comedy gig on the 20th July. What are your tips for making my comedy conversational please?
Conversational comedy
Hi L,
Well done for taking the plunge. How long is your spot? 5 minutes? If you're looking to make it conversational I'm assuming your material is leaning more towards the observational/storytelling side than one liners.
This is some stuff about telling funny stories that I've found useful - they may be helpful for you too. If I'm sharing anecdotes, I identify the key elements of the anecdote/story and work out how to get to each element as efficiently as possible. I try to ensure that the 'punchline' of the anecdote is as good as possible. I've always found that telling an audience a story can buy me a bit of extra time compared to someone throwing out one-liners. However, the payoff has to be worth the journey otherwise they can lose trust in you pretty quickly.
I try to be as relaxed as I can - I always try to perform as if I'm telling a story to some friends at the pub. The more experience you get, the more confident you'll become up on stage and that conversational style can develop.
Hope some of that is useful
Lee
Quote: Lee Moore @ 12th July 2019, 2:58 PMI try to be as relaxed as I can - I always try to perform as if I'm telling a story to some friends at the pub.
That's the way to do it - as Mr Punch is always telling us.
Basically, the idea is to make the dialogue more like a conversation than a speech: you talk to the audience rather than at them.
The fact that the audience is not replying is of no consequence: there are plenty of conversations during which one party talks for a long time and the others just listen.
Hopefully, it'll go brilliantly well but if it doesn't - who cares?
Just keep talking to them and, if what you're saying is interesting, they'll keep listening.
Simples!
Thank you for the advice
Good luck for tomorrow - let us know how it goes!