How I Started Stand-Up Comedy
How to begin and what it’s like (Spoiler: Arrrrrghhhh)
I’m sure a lot of people wonder what it’s like to perform stand up comedy. Perhaps you even think about how it might all play out if you youself gave it a shot, or you just wonder why anyone is mad enough to start in this daunting arena.
Well stop wondering and start er, un-wondering, as luckily for you, here’s a rundown of my experiences starting out in stand up comedy for the last 6 months.
Disclaimer
Before we get into this, it’s best you know I’m shit. Well, maybe not shit but a rank amateur, a total beginner, a wannabe with no skills flying by the seat of my pants, so please don’t read this story looking for expert advice. There are no truffles buried in this dirt, there is only dirt.
At the time of writing, I’ve done a mere 16 gigs. That’s about 80–90 minutes of stage time; it’s nothing. In comedy terms, I’m a fetus.
This essay isn’t a guide or authority on anything, it’s just me explaining my experiences stepping on stage and trying to do that mad crazy thing of making strangers laugh.
With that in mind, let us begin.
Getting Started
Actively deciding to try “stand up” was a bit like coming out of the closet; the comedy closet. I had always said I hated the idea of it and had no interest in the subject, but for years I dwelled upon it, turning it over in my mind whilst a small voice inside repeated the thought “I want to be a stand up comic.”
Shut up Real Me, I’m trying to hide from my fears here, do you mind keeping quiet and sodding off?
But of course, fear is a great indicator of truth and the pesky thing about the truth is it doesn’t leave you alone.
They say go where the fear is because it indicates where you need to go. It’s where your truth is, and I think this is correct.
After all, I was never fearful of snowboarding, running a corporation or playing the trumpet in a live orchestra because I didn’t give a fuck about those things and I knew they would never happen. They evoked no emotion in me.
But comedy. Stand up comedy. That scared the living shit out of me. I always felt at some point I’d have to do it, deep down I knew there it was, down the road, waiting for me.
It had called to me like a seductive siren from the shore for years and I was being sucked in. Shut up, shut up, shut up you sexy bitch.
So I lived in denial for a good decade or so, secretly petrified, until enough was enough and I eventually did something about it. I went where the fear was.
I also turned 40, which I’m sure has absolutely nothing to do with any of this perverse behaviour.
The Course
I plucked up the courage to book a place on a stand up comedy course (the same course that Greg Davies and Rhod Gilbert went on if you’re interested), just to get started.
I went with a friend, Ian, because attending the course by myself seemed a brave step too far. I needed my hand held.
I won’t talk to much about the course itself (maybe another time) but it was 10 weeks long and fantastic – a proper boot up the arse to start gigging. I’d never have begun otherwise. I highly recommend the leverage of a course and your own financial commitment to start.
I cannot image what it would be like doing a first gig completely cold or having the motivation to do so without realising you’d just spent £500 on a course so you better make good on your promises.
The First Gig
Talking of first gigs, you probably want to know how that went, so let’s talk about it.
Now, please understand I’m not writing about this first night with a warm sense of nostalgia, I’m writing about it feeling sick and nervous, like I felt at the time.
This is because every gig still feels like my first. I’m still a novice, an imposter, wondering how I got into this stupid mess, with all the doubt and fear of a newbie; none of it has dissipated.
Anyway, this first gig, it was 14th August 2018 in a pub in Kensington.
I drove from work, rehearsing my set over and over, out loud in the car. I was changing sentences, putting emphasis on one word or another, generally panicking the whole set was pure shit and trying to find a magical sleight of hand to make it funny.
I parked up and walked to the pub to meet Ian and a girl from the course as we were all gigging that night. We walked down to the basement and I saw chairs set up facing a curtain with a mic in front of it.
Shit just got real.
I remember my legs wobbling when I was walking down the stairs and thinking about how I’d recall that wobble later. Like afterwards, when I dissected the night. Or here, in this article. It’s funny how the mind works.
Other comics came down and then the compère arrived; people buzzed around him, putting their names down on a piece of paper he’d supplied.
I had chosen a stage name (Jamie Jackson) and he said to me “That’s a great name”.
“I just made it up” I replied, not sure if I had to tell him that.
He was friendly and it made me feel a little better. He didn’t go “Who the fuck are you and why do you think you’re meant to be here?!” Which was somewhat of a relief.
We went back up to the pub and he told me I was on second and to do a “tight five”. I said ok and pretended to look like it was no bother.
It was a bother.
It was a whole fucking lot of bother.
About half an hour later I’m sitting in the audience and the compère is on stage chatting to the one non-comic in the room about what he did for a living. Or something. I wasn’t listening. I was too nervous.
Worse, when he introduced the first act, she was a real comedian, a professional, who just wanted 5 minutes before she fucked off somewhere else. She was great, funny, full of energy and she improvised. She was an actual comic.
I felt like this was a dick measuring contest and she’s just got out a 12 inch monster and I was sitting there scared and shrivelled watching her swing it around as the audience went “Oooh.”
She didn’t actually have a dick. It’s a metaphor.
The compère returned and did some patter about whatever and then introduced me.
Everything went a bit tunnel vision. I was adrenalised to fuck. I remember the shock of having a bright, hot light in my face when I stood on stage. No one tells you about that. I wasn’t ready for it.
Then I did my set. It was shitty stuff really, about LinkedIn and cockneys and whatever but it went down well. I didn’t stumble over my words. I felt weirdly confident, like I was meant to do this. I really honestly did. The mic in my hand, the talking to an audience. It was comfortable. Comfortable and simultaneously petrifying. But somehow familiar.
People laughed – mostly politely – but it still counts (more on audience reaction later). I got an actual proper laugh from one joke about chess being racist. Then I said goodnight. And that was it.
All those years of building it up in my head. All that stress and denial and terror for that. That! The moment I was off stage the focus was back on the compère. Then some other budding comic. It was fine.
The Gigging Grind
I repeated the process, turning up to some other pubs, sometimes with Ian, sometimes alone, and did my set.
I’d been in bands for a good 15 years and it was all familiar protocol:
- Rehearse endlessly
- Turn up to a dive venue that’s half empty
- Perform to a handful of people that don’t much care
- Go home
- Repeat
Still, the benefit of every gig was clocking up stage time. I needed it. I still need it, just to get used to the silences, the blaring lights, the people staring.
Stand up is unique as an art form in that it’s the only one you have to learn publicly.
You can craft guitar skills at home, but you can’t craft stand up skills anywhere but on stage, else you’re just a writer of jokes, not a stand up comic.
Anyway. Let’s talk about a bad gig. My fourth gig was a mess. I was overly confident because I’d got a heady 15 minute stage time under my belt and thought “This stand up stuff is easy.” Twat.
I thought I could get on stage and improvise around a loose set of ideas. Could I fuck.
My opening joke that normally got a polite laugh got nothing. NOTHING. It threw me.
I powered on – at one point nearly crumbling under the silence – and did my terrible five minutes to dead air.
Here’s an observation. When you get met with silence, you panic. Your mouth goes dry, hands shakes, your voice quivers, but after 30 seconds, the panic subsides. Your brain is shouting “GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!” but when you don’t, when you continue, that fear subsides. You can’t biologically stay in a state of terror for very long.
Comedian Anthony Jeselnik said that when an audience doesn’t laugh you just need to be a “fucking tank” and plough on through. Have conviction and keep on rolling. That piece of advice has got me through a few shit sets so far.
The Audience
Luckily or unluckily, you don’t get a proper audience when you start out. You get “bringers”, dragged along by other acts on a wet Tuesday who are there to support their mate, or just a room full of open mic comics waiting for their turn.
You sometimes get real audience members here and there, but they are a minority.
Oddly, this minority often includes a couple on a second or third date who think it’ll be fun to see the comedy upstairs at the pub they’re in and don’t realise that with free comedy you get exactly what you pay for.
I’ve had a few interactions with the audience. A few times I’ve had a shit set but improvised well with an audience member for 30 seconds and felt that was a enough to victory take away. It feels good.
I’ve also noticed if you do something that’s off the cuff (even if it might essentially be a canned line, or something you planned just before you came on stage) it’s appreciated more than anything else you’ll do.
Addressing the room, or following a theme of the night is a must.
If someone’s been picked on all night, bring it up. If the room has emptied out, too cold or is falling apart, mention it. It’s what friends joking around with each other would do.
I think – though I’m still working it out – that stand up should be like sharing funny things with friends. The audience want to feel that. For the most part they want to laugh. They’re desperate to laugh. They’ve come to a comedy night for fuck’s sake, they want to be entertained.
Of course that doesn’t stop the feelings of being an imposter but it’s good to realise it’s not just about “you” it’s about “us”.
The Laughing Code
I haven’t had many real laughs from an audience. “Real” meaning the belly laugh, the moment of explosion where you’ve caught someone off guard and the laughter has burst out of them. Maybe I’ve induced this once or twice from someone at most but it’s rare.
Mostly I get polite laughs. This is a code. The audience works in code, whether or not they know it. A polite laugh says they’re happy to make the laughing sound, because you’ve made it easy for them to do so.
They’re laughing out loud sure, but if they were watching you on YouTube they wouldn’t. It’s polite because it’s somewhat forced. It’s like they’re fulfilling their side of the bargain, it’s a way for them to verbally acknowledge they’re ok with you. It’s a team thing.
Whereas silence is not. I did a gig a while back with a very young and nervous guy who came up with one liners. He struggled. Everyone politely laughed to help him along. Then, as he didn’t relax or improve, the polite laughing got less, until eventually the room was silent. It was the audience saying “We’ve done our bit but you’re not fulfilling your end of the bargain so we’re done helping.”
An audience will let you die a slow death if you’re really shit, even though the audience dies with them. An icy silence will kill the whole room. And no audience wants that.
Perhaps at the Comedy Store on a Friday night, when someone is dying on stage, it’s a gladiatorial experience, but not on a Wednesday when there’s 14 people in the room.
So if you do die on stage, with no polite laughter, then it’s worth working out why. It’s easy to blame the venue or the compère or the comic before you, but ultimately, comedians need to work our how to be room proof.
Self Doubt
There’s a giant, never ending feeling insecurity in stand up. At least it hasn’t gone away for me. Perhaps this is more who I am than the art form as I felt that playing music.
It’s a value issue. With comedy, I feel almost apologetic that I’m there, that I don’t belong, that I’m an idiot for trying, that it’s like the Make A Wish foundation and they’ve just let me perform as a favour.
That’s fear talking. Fear is a fucking liar acting as a friend. Fear is pulling me back to the entropy of the comfort zone. Fear is telling me I’ve got everything to lose. Fear is keeping me small.
These last 6 months have been about not listening to fear. It’s been a constant struggle, a real mind over matter thing. I cold shower every morning and I go to the gym late a night even when I don’t want to. I don’t see myself as someone who lacks will power or avoids discomfort, but I’ve wanted to ditch this stupid hobby so many times. SO MANY TIMES.
There are two factors that stop me. The first one is having my friend Ian do it too. We’re both competitive and I can’t sit on my arse when I see him booking gigs and playing new venues. I have to keep up. I can’t have him living my dream. That is a great motivator.
The second reason is that a more experienced comedian told me:
“If you’re not wanting to give up comedy at least once a month, you’re not trying hard enough.”
Boom. Suddenly all this resistance and doubt can just be labelled as normal. I’m not alone. That helped a lot.
So What Now?
I’m not sure. Ive just followed the fear, the need, that internal voice inside and decided not ask bigger questions. I stopped asking why about these things a long time ago. There isn’t really a valid Why to do stand up anyway. It’s mad and seemingly pointless. No one does it knowing why. Everyone does it because they have to.
Still, in this shirt 6 months, I’ve gone from enthusiastic beginner to frustrated learner. It’s a level up – it’s progress – but as the name suggests, it’s bloody frustrating.
I’m faced with a diminishing sense of satisfaction as it all becomes a routine struggle. The next rung up – competence – seems impossibly far away.
I believe that happiness comes from two places; making progress and facing fears.
Is there a better arena for this to play out so blatantly than in stand up comedy?
If you’re considering trying stand up, please do. I’ve realised that anyone can do it, even though it might seem impossible before starting. Being good however is still a mystery.
Still, this is the journey… Embrace the struggle, enjoy the process and get ready to bask in how far you’ve come. Progress baby!
Keep Reading
If you enjoyed this article, I’ve done an 18 month update you might also like, here:
If you care, I have a podcast where I interview new-ish comics and other performers. Take a listen if it interests you. Cheers!
