Performance advice?

Good afternoon All,

So where do I begin?? I've been gigging as a stand up open mic act for around 8 months now, slowly developing the material and getting as many gigs as I can however, over thepast few weeks I have consistently had the same feed back from other comics/ audience members (at least 4 times) which usually goes something like this:

"I really liked your material/ you have some really good material but, you need to have more confidence in your material/ deliver it with more conviction."

As an act I'm quite dead pan, do quite alot of one liners and I'm also sometimes apologetic about material that doesn't work (however, I am slowly getting rid of this). My question is how do I go about delivering with more conviction/ confidence as I feel fairly confident on stage although this obviously isn't being projected to the audience? Do I need to be more animated, etc?

I've posted a link of a set I did late last year and I would say that my delivery/ routine hasn't changed too much since then although this was a gong show so there maybe a memory blip in there somewhere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXBP-m-vNz4&feature=g-upl&context=G26e8654AUAAAAAAACAA

Any feed back/ advice that you may have would be gratefully received as I would like to close off this area of criticism.

Many thanks,

Jason.

Keep going; it can take a while before you really get comfortable up there. I'm only just now getting to that place and I've been at it going on three years. Get as much stage time as you can and the confidence will soon come.

Having watched your performance I'd suggest a few things that might help speed up the confidence process:

Don't fuss with the mic cable - it's a sure sign of nervousness.

Stop looking at the floor after your punchlines - it makes you look ashamed of your jokes.

Watch your "ums". Tough one this but with practice you'll start weaning them out.

Learn your material inside out and really nail the delivery. A little verbal stumble goes a long way towards an audience losing faith in you.

Stop apologising for your material. It's always tempting when something bombs to get a laugh out of your own incompetence but it's easy and it breeds bad habits. It's also not a good sign when it gets you your biggest laugh as it shows the one point the audience really sat up and took notice was when they were agreeing with you over your own failure.

The last thing to consider is that maybe your material isn't as strong as people are telling you it is. It's always easier to criticise a person's performance than it is their jokes - maybe there's a level of politeness at play. From what I'm hearing, the audience mostly chuckles through your set when they're not groaning. You did well to make it to the end of your set but the true test of your success lies with the audience, not the promoters.

Best of luck with it!

What DB said really, all great advice, especially the never apologise for a joke that bombs, just carry on as if it wasn't a joke.

Stand up is all about confidence, or the illusion of confidence, the audience need you to be totally in control because they are worried, consciously or subconsciously, the moment you step on stage that you might not be funny and sitting through 5,10 or 20 minutes of someone who's not funny is embarrassing for them as much as it is for the act (or given some acts complete lack of self-awareness much more so for the audience).

To be confident you need to be prepared and well rehearsed, as David says know your material inside out, prepare for likely heckles you might get, prepare for what you'll do if you lose the audience and they start chatting or losing interest.

When you arrive at a venue work out how you are going to get onto the stage, which route you will take, if there are any steps or trip hazards, whether you have to push past audience members, etc.

Visualise in your head how you will take the mic out of the stand and what you will do in the first few seconds you are on stage, remember you are being judged as soon as your name is announced, look and sound like a pro in those initial moments and half the battle is won.

Remember, the more things that you have within your control the more confidence you will have.

Try to get to a point where you are only doing material that you are 100% happy with, this is tough, it involves ditching material that you might like but that isn't pulling it's weight. It also means testing out new material, either at new material nights or bit by bit at a normal gig (ie. by dropping in one or two new jokes when it's going well).

Never ask the audience a question that you've not prepared for all responses or as many as you can (audiences will always retain the ability to randomly blindside you with an unpredictable answer) or better still only ask questions that can be answered in the manner you want, or even better still don't ask them questions unless you really, really have to or have something brilliant you can do with the interaction. Audiences are expecting you to perform for them, not a pub quiz/census.

Hope some of this helps and keep gigging and working hard, 8 months is nothing in comedy terms, it's taken me nearly 8 years to learn what I'm telling you and I was watching an interview with Ken Dodd today, make in 1995 where he described his 40+ years in the business as "40 years of practising".

Good advice above.

At work I train people in my team to stand up and present. The two key points are know what you want to say and practise outloud. Clearly you've done the second - but in the set sometimes you seemed unsure what you were saying next.

Like Tony's advice about intros. Always have your intros planned. Have a set routine and then you can concentrate on your first impact, your grabber.

By the way, liked your Mack the Knife - clearly there's a confident performer in you!

Hi,

Thanks for your replies and apologies for not thanking you sooner but, I haven't been able to access this site for a while. I'll definitely have another look through the material and be more ruthless as to what goes in and what comes out etc. I'm writing alot more now and the set on here was some time ago but, that's no excuse.

The thing you all pick up on is not knowing the material inside out which, if I'm honest is something that I haven't done as yet. This often leads to me doing the material in different orders or missing out whole jokes all together I've also noticed since reading this, the acts that seem to be progressing are the ones that do the same set almost word for word each time I see them so this is something I am going to strive to do over the coming months/ years.

Thanks again for taking the time to look through my stuff and give some detailed responses to my problem I have found it most helpful and appreciate your advice. Oh and thanks for checking out mack the knife.

All the best,

Jason.

To begin with I would advise doing roughly 90-95% the same material at each gig, use the 5-10% to slip in a small amount of new material and drop the 5-10% that isn't pulling it's weight.

Stand up is all about finding the balance between material and performance, a great performer can get away with mundane material but great material in the hands of a mundane performer will always seem mundane.

To begin with a stand up might have some good material but be unable to "sell" it, therefore it's wise not to jettison too much material until you've at least become a competent on stage performer. Once you can "sell" most material then you can become a better judge of what material will work and what won't.

Stand ups who are great performers with limited material seem to fast-track very quickly but eventually they run out of steam as the material becomes old and they can't refresh it, stand ups with great material tend do better in the long run as eventually their performance skills catch up with their writing.

As with everything though, ultimately it comes from hard work and experience, rehearse the material as much as you can and get as much stage time as you can, try to learn from every gig, good or bad. Analyse what you did right and, especially, what you did wrong and what you would do differently next time. You get stymied by a heckle one night, then write 10, 20, 30 comebacks and putdowns for the next time you get that heckle.

Preparation is the key to looking natural and confident, it takes a surprising amount of effort to make stand up look effortless.