What to avoid when starting out as a stand up comedian
So, you’re moving from being the class
clown and the funny guy in your group of friends to embarking on the road to
becoming a stand up comedian. You find
making people laugh and being funny comes natural to you, so it’s going to be
easy taking that to the next level right?
Well standing on stage and making an audience of strangers laugh is not
as easy as the professionals make it look.
For a start, before you even consider taking to the stage, you should
have practiced and practiced some more, learning from your mistakes and
gradually your performance will appear more natural and comfortable. As a newbie, these are some tips you may find
useful:
·
You cannot rely on good
material to achieve a good response from your audience. Even the best, most hilarious material can be
ruined by poor delivery. Equally,
sometimes a relatively poor joke can be delivered in such a way that still has
the audience in uproar.
·
Look carefully at your body
language. If physical humor comes
naturally to you, incorporate this into your routine. Are you comfortable moving about the stage,
engaging the audience, attracting their attention with your movement around the
stage. Unless you are deliberately
adopting a deadpan style, incorporate variations in your voice and facial
expressions to emphasise key parts of your routine.
·
You may have found you could
make friends and family laugh with off the cuff humor and observations. However, as a stand up, you should avoid
thinking you can go on stage and ‘wing’ it.
You should have a well rehearsed routine that you can go on stage and
perform with little or no requirement for ad libbing. As you become a more seasoned performer, you
may start to develop a confidence which allows you to switch about your routine
a little to suit the audience, but particularly as you first start out, stick
to a well rehearsed act that you have confidence in.
·
Use material that is based on
your own experiences or interests. It is
easier to write about subjects you know and the audience can sense if you are
insincere and write about topics you know little about or have no interest
in. No matter what your lifestyles or
interests, there should be plenty of topics to use as a source for your
routine.
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