I have never understood how stand up comedians can ask a audiance member about themselves and come strait back out with a joke. Anyone care to enlighten me.
Working the crowd
You just have a bunch of standard responses you modify.
but it takes practise
But what if you do not have any funny responses to what someone says?
That's what practise and prep is about.
Pay someone you know with a really boring job to sit in the front row then just pick on them.
Also I don't do stand up but from watching it I agree with sootj, a lot of comedians have standard replies that they use no matter what the audience member says, like Frankie Boyle:
"What do you do?"
"I'm a PE teacher."
"You're a trainee paedophile!"
"What do you do?"
"I work on my own at the back of a factory."
"You're a trainee paedophile!"
"What do you do?"
"I'm a nursery teacher."
And so on. I've seen Frankie Boyle use the same comeback several times. I've seen the "you look like a moderately powerful Pokemon." line on several different people, most of whom looked nothing alike.
Ye Frankie is pretty good at that.
You see the familairity and unpredictability works to beat a shit line
ie
heckler
"oi sootyj you unfunny wanker"
sootyj
"your the wanker, you're doing it right now!"
bad line but because it feels unexpected it has more power.
or
sootyj
"what do you do for a living?"
blond with big tits
"I work in a bakery"
sootyj
"I'd like to roll your dough or ice your buns or butter your baps "
all shit of course in the cold light of day
Ill play about with some ideas then post some of them. I guess its a case of asking open questions and replying with answeres that can apply to many things.
As a comedian you should never really ask a question that you've not prepared responses to virtually every answer you could reasonably expect, this doesn't mean that you won't occasionally get caught out but 99% of the time you'll be prepared to have a quick and witty "ad libbed" comeback.
Also with comebacks you don't really need to be that funny just quick, the speed of thought will buy you a much bigger laugh than you would get if it was a prepared joke.
Dara O'Briain is brilliant at this sort of thing, he'll ask someone what they do for a living and then his memory will recall a joke related to that job or subject, if you can do that it looks to the audience like you've made it up on the spot.
Why not write down a list of common jobs/hobbies and see if you can write some quick associated jokes for them? Especially ones which can be used for interchangable jobs, ie call centre/shop work/working in a bank, all having to deal with f**king idiots on a da to day basis.
Very few comics can genuiely come up with things on the spot; it's a matter of having a great bank of usable bits or being a master of improv.
Oh also closed questions are quite good at making an audience feel like they're participating. Although it's done to death, the question "is anyone in a relationship?" "you?" "how did you meet your partner?" leads into material about relationships.
And if you search you'll see that Griff often uses that line.
Quote: Griff @ January 7 2011, 12:19 AM GMTYes, there's nothing like "being a master of improv" if you're one of those comics who struggles with "coming up with things on the spot".
I either typed that wrong or you're twisting my words. The last bit was more an answer to the OP re their original question. Sheesh!
Griff's on his period.
Quote: zooo @ January 7 2011, 12:23 AM GMTGriff's on his period.
Bloody women. LITERALLY.
