Couple of Stand Up questions Page 4

Happy to return the favour!

As for age, having now read a lot on the subject I've come to the conclusion that part of the problem with starting late is the perception that you need to do 20 years while you're crap before suddenly finding you are quite good. I wonder ifthat's born from a lot of standups just being crap for 20 years!

I wonder how much of the "finding your voice" etc type stuff is more about finding your place in life....whether you're standing up or not. There are plenty of standups who are great from very early on....irrespective of when they started. There are others who do years before "cracking it".

At 36 I think I have skills and attributes that I've developed over the last 20 years that (while not gained in a comedy club) are still valid towards that arena....I can speak publicly, I'm confident, I have no pressure - its for a laugh, I don't need the money and I have plenty of experience in the "real world" which is where 99% of the audience live anyway! They have more in common with me than with someone making £2m a year touring the country.

Who knows...I could have started at 19 and never got it....or not cracked it till 37 after all those years in poverty!

So in summary...while I wouldn't want to be starting after 40, I'm happy that 36 (+ plus exiting abilities) is a fine foundation

(I'm also working on the premise that Gervais meet Merchant at 36, Rhod Gilbert did my comedy course in his 30's and John Bishop worked in sales (like me)......they are my "if he can, I can" inspiration ! )

Quote: Jon Pearson @ February 22 2010, 2:19 PM GMT

Looking forward to hearing how you get on Mr Lewis.

I believed we have conversed slightly in the critque forum a few times.

I am also going on a standup course this weekend in Birmingham, so would be happy to look at any material you develop in the next coming weeks, maybe you'd return the favour?

I'm a complete beginner to, but have been posting in the forums for a little while now and this site has helped me a bucket load in getting my writing style sorted out.
This thread has answered allot of my own questions about stand-up (I thought I was alittle late getting into it, at 27, but I can see that is not true now).

Here's to success (in which ever form you want it)

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Jon, have you got any details on the Birmingham stand-up course?

Here is the link to the website I found it on.
No idea whether it will be any good but I'm going to give it a try

link

Thanks Jon.

I think a big bit of a standup course is acting as an "inbetween" between sat at home and gigging. I know that for me I'm more looking forward to being forced to perform than I am looking forward to learning stuff (although I am keen to learn!)

.....£3 per session as well in Birmingham - the joys of London, its going to cost me £15 a day to park my car for my course!

Pretty much the same here, I'm looking forward to standing up (shockingly) and performing.
Hoping to learn a few tricks for better writing styles though, and knowing what works with what.

I'm taking along my current material for the guy to have a look at, hope he doesn't just rip it up and chuck it in the bin!

Good luck

yeah, a nice result would be to hear "hey, your stuff is funny...let me help you with performing it to the best"....as opposed to "thats all shit, I can teach you stage skills but when you're done you'll still be writing shit"

That would be a poor investment of my time!

I'm hoping for the same...
A "yeah,that's funny but if you changed that to this, and this to that it would be better..." wouldnt be to bad.

I supposed its going to be pretty much like being in the critque forum, but with people actually LOOKING at you!

I think I've said it before, but I love this forum. It really gets my creative juices flowing. One of the main reasons why I think I'm ready to try it out for real.....(or be told I'm shite)

Actually did my first standup last night at the Highlight in Birmingham.

It was a showcase for the 5 week course I've been on recently involving 12 "New Faces of Comedy".

Compered by Tom Roache and organised by Liam Jones, it went REALLY well!

Between 125-150 people there, majority were family and friends of the standups but most stuck around to see the night through.

I was on 11th out of 12, "warming up" for Aaron Twitchen

Caught the bug now and looking for my next gigs!

Thanks to anyone that has helped me improve my act on the critique forum and the advice from this thread!

Quote: Jon Pearson @ April 12 2010, 11:07 AM BST

Actually did my first standup last night at the Highlight in Birmingham.

It was a showcase for the 5 week course I've been on recently involving 12 "New Faces of Comedy".

Compered by Tom Roache and organised by Liam Jones, it went REALLY well!

Between 125-150 people there, majority were family and friends of the standups but most stuck around to see the night through.

I was on 11th out of 12, "warming up" for Aaron Twitchen

Caught the bug now and looking for my next gigs!

Thanks to anyone that has helped me improve my act on the critique forum and the advice from this thread!

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Well done, John! The next step's the big one though.

Well done John!

Well...done my course!

I've stuck the YouTube in the Critique forum here:

https://www.comedy.co.uk/forums/thread/17712#P620578

Bit of background on the course for anyone interested in that route...

4 weekends (sat and sun..so 8 full days) with Logan Murray via Amused Moose. For someone who is used to (and likes) sitting alone in an office all day it was a HUGE culture shock to enter, what felt like a GCSE drama course with lots of improv games and generally acting a fool in front of others. However, Logan said Rhod Gilbert hated the games too so I was in good company!

20 people there from all sorts of backgrounds (a few actors and a couple that had the odd gig under their belt...but most complete newbies with no drama/acting/comedy background - like me)

The showcase was a "pay to see" event but still attended by a lot of friends of acts so was pretty friendly.....although I knew no one in the audience so it felt real enough to me!

In summary...great course, well worth the money for the laughs alone and I was please (in an odd way) that what I had in my head to do BEFORE I went on the course is what I ended up doing - in other words, the course gave me the confidence to do what I COULD do.....and my question before I went on it was always "can I do that".