But can the Producer be funny too?

Written by: Howard Cohen
Published: Saturday 11th August 2018

TV producer Howard Cohen has started to perform stand-up comedy too. Interesting! We asked him to write his story for us...

My work in the television industry began in a dusty basement where I sat burning DVDs, a type of work that no longer exists in this digital age.

Over the next ten years, I've been lucky enough to work with some of the biggest names in comedy on projects for most of the major broadcasters and some of the most respected TV productions companies in Britain. I'm now a Producer, a job that we all know exists, although most people don't know what it means, including many producers. Building this career in television comedy and entertainment seemed a distant dream back when I was burning DVDs.

So why on earth, at this stage in my otherwise pleasant, satisfying existence have I decided to start performing live comedy? Surely I should know better than this?! Having worked with so many comedians over the years, seeing their pain first hand, surely the suffering of it all can not be worth it?

The "urge" started when I was at the Edinburgh Festival a few years ago. A lot of us production folk go up there for the TV festival, but for me it's always been about watching the comedy. I was at a mixed bill night of unknown acts when the compere asked if anyone wanted to get up and perform as there had been a drop out. To my surprise, I felt an unexpected compulsion to raise my hand. But before I'd built up the necessary courage, another guy had jumped in and performed a short set of mainly alcohol-driven sex jokes.

As I left Edinburgh having watched so many amazing performers (John Kearns, Joel Dommett, Luisa Omielan and Dane Baptiste were particular highlights that year) I asked myself seriously for the first time if I had it in me to be funny on stage? I might be able to make people laugh in my job and in my normal life, but getting up there? Why? I'm a producer, I should stick to that.

But the idea of trying comedy followed me back home to London and my wife soon became tired of my neurotic meanderings around the subject. A comedian friend recommended I take a stand-up course, the very idea of which made me sick. How can you be taught it? But having done the Logan Murray course, I can categorically say it is an amazing way to take the first steps to performing in a safe space. Over 10 weeks Logan teaches you to build both material and confidence.

Then came graduation day! At the end of Logan's course, every student performs a five minute set at The Water Rats (a pub near Kings Cross). That day I felt so nauseous I couldn't eat a thing. I remember thinking repeatedly "Why am I bothering to do this? I have a job! All the comedians I work with are going to think I'm a fucking idiot for even trying this! Stick to producing!"

And then, that night, just as the show was about to start, I saw Nick Helm walk in. My stomach and heart dropped, I was about to go on stage for the first time and almost certainly not be funny, and my friend, the incredible comedian Nick would see the full horror unfold. I tried desperately to avoid his eye line, but he inevitably spotted me and came over to ask what I was doing here. I hesitantly told him I had been doing the course. In my head I had always expected every comedian I had worked with as a producer to pour scorn on my decision to take to the stage, as though I was treading on their turf and they'd all tell me that I should stick to my own side. But far from asking me why the hell I was doing this, Nick was unequivocally encouraging. "You're one of us now," he said, giving me a big hug and calming my nerves in the process.

Nevertheless my performance that night was unquestionably shit. I have the video to prove it, but Nick's support has continued ever since, as has that of many other comedians I've worked with over the years. It's like over the last few months I've been 'coming out' to them as a comedian, and thankfully they've all been supportive. Harriett Kemsley deserves special mention for kind words as I nervously waited to perform my sixth gig.

What I never guessed was that the comedians might be happy that a producer puts themselves out there, so they can understand what they're going through every night. I am far from the first producer to do comedy. There's been many examples over the years, but the perspective of being the performer has given me an opportunity to understand just how tough job their job is. It's given me an entirely new found respect and love for every comedian I've ever worked with and a real appreciation of the battles that they fight on a daily basis, whether creatively, logistically, or for many financially.

Two years on, I have about 130 gigs under my belt and whilst I'm so far away from being an experienced comedian, I have managed to grasp a sense of what it is to be up on stage, and why we do it. Sometimes friends and colleagues come to watch me, and the sheer terror they have that I'm going to be absolutely awful has become an entertaining tradition. It's surprised me how many people I work with are pleased that they know I am doing this, almost as though they knew before I did that I could do it.

This journey has allowed me to slowly overcome the nerves that had consumed me at any public speaking scenario. I'm now at a point where I actually enjoy most gigs - the challenge of trying new bits, working with the crowd, and the unique confidence that comes from finding a bit that seems to get laughs again and again.

But once I became pretty confident performing, I had to ask myself again, what's the real point in keeping on doing it? I've got a career! Luckily, just when I realised that simply having material that got some laughs wasn't enough for me, I started to discover what I really wanted to be saying up there. Up to this point, I'd managed to earn a right to be on stage by getting laughs, but only now did I start to see what I wanted those jokes to be about.

The bottom line of it seems to just be that I have jokes I really want to tell. And just like if you're a musician with a song to sing, why wouldn't you sing it? Our overly commercialised culture of success has grown in such a way it pretty much overrides what used to be our passion-fuelled culture of the soul. The reason to sing a song, or tell a joke is because you've got one to share, and that in itself is as good a reason to get up there.

And thankfully it seems many of my jokes make people laugh. Over the past two years, I've gathered the data from every gig (Backyard is my favourite) and the information I've collected suggests the jokes are funny enough for me to keep going. But I'm also performing comedy because it provides an immediacy that producing can't. To develop and produce a show takes many months and often years, whereas I can come up with a joke whilst walking to a gig and perform it that night.

In fact lots of these jokes and this material has now mutated into a show mixing stand-up with a Dave Gorman-esque PowerPoint, as well as video and images that's an hour of comedy I'm proud of. My writing agent has even got behind it all (thanks Steve & Hannah) and we're debating whether to take it to Edinburgh next year, which would perhaps be a good conclusion to the story seeing as that's where the desire to try it all began.

And maybe that will be that! Maybe I'll just go back to being a producer, having learnt so much about comedians by kind of being one of them for a while.

The past couple of years has given me a new found appreciation of what all comedians do up there, the process they go on to create their art. When it's at it's best, comedy is a process of sharing who you are, truthfully,

That feeling of sharing is so powerful and that joy in truthfulness is unfortunately missing in so many other professions.

No matter what your job, producer or not, I'd recommend trying it.