Quote: Matthew Stott @ August 4 2011, 6:11 PM BSTIt depends who's doing the stand up; if it's good people, then it's great.
Exactamundo.
I deeply despise bad stand up. I obsessively fawn over good stand up.
I don't like stand up. Page 2
It's funny (if you'll pardon the pun) how few gags are used in stand-up. Is it that political correctness or whatever has rendered 99% of jokes illegal? Or have jokes gone out of fashion?
What we seem to be left with (when done badly) is stand-up as a sort of therapy scenario (life observations from the person on stage, with the audience finding 'humour'/comfort in agreement & empathy).
Some people do observational stuff brilliantly and even take it to hilarious extremes / surrealness. But I do agree that a lot of stand-up is cringe-making.
You're all going to see the wrong stuff.
Of course, Nat Wicks is the exception to all this. 
Quote: Peter Brouhaha @ August 4 2011, 7:41 PM BSTIt's funny (if you'll pardon the pun) how few gags are used in stand-up. .
Lots of people do gags; not that you have to do gags to be a stand up.
Quote: Leevil @ August 4 2011, 8:04 PM BSTOf course, Nat Wicks is the exception to all this.
Quiet, you.
Quote: Nat Wicks @ August 4 2011, 7:59 PM BSTYou're all going to see the wrong stuff.
Yeah maybe, Nat.
That or my sense of humour bypass was more successful than first thought!
Although there's no rules, as such, but a subtle pattern I noticed
to the style of stand up I enjoy, is, when a comic begins with their own personal misfortunes in life/hypocrisies,
Then, examples of how these misfortunes extend to public/social situations,
Then, as the audience slap their thighs an throw back their heads with laughter, the comic does a gradual u-turn, takes a stand, and through a different prism you realise the aforementioned misfortunes are in fact societies problems (social rules, graces, vanities, formalities etc) so now the angle switches a bit and the comic unleases his little righteous truths that may highlight the audiences hypocrisies and misfortunes in life.
Then Thank you and good night.
Sort of like, the structure of a single joke... applied to an entire set.
DISCLAIMER:
At first (and second) glance that may all read as pretentious overkill, but I'm not pretentious, it's just a vague pattern I noiced that seems to emerge in about ten of my favourite sets. I doubt it's deliberate, just a natural order to follow.
Yours, Jack 'Professor Of Comedy' Daniels.
(c) Formula For Humour
Quote: Chappers @ August 4 2011, 5:30 PM BSTThere - I've said it.
I know what you mean, I don't like all music.
I've seen Peter Kay live and it was fantastic.
I've seen Chubby Brown live and he was just an offensive unfunny lout.
I think it's no longer taken seriously as an art form. There are still a few genuinely talented ones out there. I feel a bit sorry for these proper comics who now get lumped in with the utter dross that floods onto the TV from over stuffed comedy venues now. They should close the doors on all the other wannabes because it's silly now, they've made it look ridiculous.
Virtually the same sub standard rubbish goes round and round and round and gives stand up the bad name it's now got. What happened to pop music has now happened to the stand up comedy industry. It's been flooded by every deluded untalented fool who wants to be funny and famous. Sit down, stand up, you've become an embarassment.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ August 5 2011, 8:45 AM BSTI think it's no longer taken seriously as an art form.
I don't think it ever really has been. Not in the wider public at least.
But as with music,you look beyond what's filling the top 20 and there is a ton of great stuff out there. Many people won't though,they'll just see Manford, or John Bishop, and say it's rubbish; they'll never have seen or heard Louis C.K., Maria Bamford, Simon Munnery, Tim Key, Paul F. Tompkins, Colin Hoult, and on, and on, and on.
Quote: Matthew Stott @ August 5 2011, 9:11 AM BSTI don't think it ever really has been. Not in the wider public at least.
they'll just see Manford, or John Bishop, and say it's rubbish; they'll never have seen or heard Louis C.K., Maria Bamford, Simon Munnery, Tim Key, Paul F. Tompkins, Colin Hoult, and on, and on, and on.
Manford and Bishop are indeed woefully unfunny. But then I find Lee unfunny but I can appreciate the man's craft and he just looks like he's given everything for his art. I still don't find him that funny but I'd rather watch him and other stand up gods like Izzard.
But the vast majority of them look like they're only cashing in on it.
At university I lived with an aspiring stand-up who used to love Bill Hicks and Roy Chubby Brown in equal measure. I don't think he got anywhere with his dreams, which is just as well as he was a bit of an idiot.
As for stand up, it's never really done much for me, although despite appearing on The Word, Bill Hicks was excellent. As was young Steve Martin. Curiously, stand up seems to attract a lot of devotional male followers but not many women. And the comics who do have cross-gender appeal (Michael McIntyre et al) are usually the ones despised by the Cultural Gestapo.
Quote: Will Cam @ August 4 2011, 9:30 PM BSTI've seen Peter Kay live and it was fantastic.
I've seen Chubby Brown live and he was just an offensive unfunny lout.
Chubby Brown's audience is far more interesting than his act. They're literally like Pavlov's dog. They wait till the slight dip in his routine which indicate's a punchlines coming and laugh on queue.
No wonder he's so bloody rich.