Memorising a routine

Anyone have any tips, I don't mean individual jokes but just remembering the order and making sure that you've said them all, it always feels like a cop out when I have to stare at my hand. Thanks.

Hi,

It's Ok to stare at your hand as the audience don't expect you to remember everything you could make a joke out of the fact it's on your hand or you could write your material on a card and keep it in your back pocket 'just in case.'

If you want to memorise your set you could use the memory house or castle technique which is where you memorise your set as having different subjects in different rooms but, links between the rooms. So for instance if you were going to talk about the beach, the zoo and cleaning you may remember it as follows:

As you walk in the garden theres a giant beach ball (the beach) in the front garden, then as you move into the house there's a Gorrila (the zoo) in a pinney doing the hoovering (cleaning).

So you have clear images to reference where your set is going. Aside from that the obvious practice, practice, practice mantra also applies.

I hope this is of some use? All the best,

Jason

Rehearse it.

Break it down into sections.

Practice.

Break it down again.

Practice.

Finalise it.

Write it down.

Realise you hadn't finalised it.

Re-finalise it.

Practice.

Make reminder notes (card/paper/hand are all acceptable).

Do gig.

Use notes as required.

Work out what is rocket science, and what is not.

Hi.
Maybe you could try and new site called www.hippofy.com. It helps people to remember hard to remember information such as speeches and routines.
regards
Noel

This is the method I use: If you rehearse your act walking around your house - room to room - you'll very quickly link areas of your home with the various parts of your act. E.g The bit about lazy drivers is by the fridge, the kitchen window is the bit about prams being the 4X4 of the pavements etc.

When on stage if you rewalk the path in your mind you'll have perfect recall of the sequence and can skip sections of your act by skipping rooms.