British Comedy Guide

Stand up Comedy. Page 25

My grandmother's house had no heating, no lighting, no electricity, no running water and on her back-kitchen table she performed no less than 144 abortions. I know what you're thinking. Gross!

And while she was doing that, my grandad was in his shop selling eggs, cheese, bacon, bread and biscuits. Grocer!
.........................................................................

(Conceived and written by me this very afternoon)

...amazing.

My nephew was 4"2 and now he's 6"3 .... Growth!

Quote: thefridaylink @ October 20 2009, 2:50 PM BST

...amazing.

My nephew was 4"2 and now he's 6"3 .... Growth!

You could filth that one up nicely

My nephew was 2"2 and now he's 6"3 .... a great thing, Viagra

Quote: thefridaylink @ October 20 2009, 2:10 PM BST

My father was a tailor, my grandfather was a tailor, my great grandfather was a tailor ... we have a lot of family ties.

My favourite so far.

My Great Grandfather had one tune, my Grandfather had two tunes, my father had three tunes and now I'm heir to the family four tune.

>_<

Golf clap ... well done.

I'm going on stage tonight. Very tempting to do some of these... but need to learn/improve my actual set.
I love doing these sort of things on Twitter on my phone as they occur to me. Am a sucker for a good hashtag. @serafinowicz does some amazing silly gags late a night based on random words which I adore.

Quote: thefridaylink @ October 20 2009, 3:49 PM BST

Golf clap ... well done.

I'm going on stage tonight. Very tempting to do some of these... but need to learn/improve my actual set.
I love doing these sort of things on Twitter on my phone as they occur to me. Am a sucker for a good hashtag. @serafinowicz does some amazing silly gags late a night based on random words which I adore.

Was it Saturday night you were on at Jongleurs? I friend of mine knows someone who was on as part of the FHM thing in Camden that night

'twas a Friday night when my wordplay-based whimsy fell on deaf ears. In East London.

Quote: thefridaylink @ October 20 2009, 2:10 PM BST

I thought I was in a close knit family but it turns out they all hate me. They were pulling the wool over my eyes ...?

Tell that joke to 1000 people in a real-life stand-up situation and I'd be surprised if ANY of them get it.

Reading it on screen, it's easy to get the joke.

Hearing it in a pub/club is a very different story.

Quote: Roodeye @ October 20 2009, 4:12 PM BST

Tell that joke to 1000 people in a real-life stand-up situation and I'd be surprised if ANY of them get it.

So yeah ... that was pretty much me in Jongleurs.

The silence was quite amazing at points ... and the people going "eh?".

The silly puns (I'm a bit of a stallion. That means I'm in a stable relationship)got groans (and hostility) and the hard to get ones "I'm working on an shorter version of an Arthur Miller play ... it's called a View From (abridged)" etc got silence, "eh?s" (and death stares).

I do like this thread, it's quite the learning experience.

Your material is basically quite funny but you need to word each joke so that reasonably intelligent and literate people will get it.

There are only 26 letters in the alphabet but, arranged in the right order, you've got ALL Shakespeare's plays. In your act, the words, their order and the stresses upon them are everything.

Instead of "I'm a bit of a stallion. That means I'm in a stable relationship", you should try:

(PROUDLY) "I'm a bit of a stallion, actually (THEN, AS IF SEEKING TO REASSURE THE AUDIENCE) but I'm in a stable relationship!" (STRESS ON 'RELATIONSHIP') (WAIT FOR LAUGH) (IF LAUGHTER IS SPARSE, CONTINUE) "Stallion? Stable?" (LOOK AT AUDIENCE AS IF TO SAY 'SURELY YOU GET IT NOW') (SOMEBODY WILL LAUGH, LOOK AT THEM AND SAY "Thank God for you, love (or mate)" (POINT AT A GROUP WHO DIDNT LAUGH) "Explain it to this lot will you?"

The above sounds good - on the forum we have time to get the jokes. In real life they've had beer and relaxed, so may not be concentrating and need nudging to see the humour.

Jongluers into adminstration they have closed down several of them.

Am hiding my schadenfreude.

Just got back from a really good gig - lots of open mics and old hands doing new bits.

I took some of Roodeye's advice and slowed down and talked a bit more between lines. Came up with this thing about the dichotomy in my material - half of it is written by a 4 year old discovering language for the first time "(helicopters...rotation... mummy you must hear this") and the rest from a bitter 40 year old academic and every gag that didn't quite work I would categorise as one of the two. As someone who hides behind one liners that was quite nice. I also did a bit at the beginning that I'd never tried before "Bit tired ...just came back from a Chinese class ... did you know that the Chinese for small government official *isn't Mandarin. And the Chinese for the Chinese language ... nope not even close. I have no idea what the Chinese for small oranges is ... but I can tell you what it isn't."
I'll be the first to admit ... that isn't *that* funny ... but it got a really good reaction as I slowed down and paced it better than I usually do and "performed" rather than simple read it out which let the little joke settle in.

Really wanted to do the my father , grand father and great grand father jokes from today but ... they are not quite there and the temptation to use Stan's "fortune" gag would have been immense.

Anyway ... I had fun. Might try and fit another one in on Thursday and a podcast recording on Sunday (it's amazing living in London at times).

Well done TFL - back on the horse!

Nice one, TFL. Well done. :)

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