The joy of being a beginner in standup comedy

When I was writing the chapter on lifelong learning in my book Find Your Purpose I realised that my true passion in life is learning something new.

There is something fabulous about being a beginner, learning something new and applying it to progress rapidly.

This year my focus has been on learning stand-up comedy, something I have thought about in the past but haven’t dedicated time to.

I’m going to share the process I have used many times to learn something new quickly.

You may not want to learn stand-up comedy but the process can be applied in many different domains.

Please don’t be put off by my process, I tend to get a bit obsessive when I’m learning something new, and I don’t imagine many people will do all of these steps. Just pick a few that suit the way you like to learn and give it a try.

If you would like to see how my comedy earning develops, please follow me on Instagram @kevandoescomedy where I share progress, comedy book reviews, details of my gigs and ideas.

My process for accelerating learning

• Do some initial reading – I read three or four books just to get an idea of the subject and start to develop some ideas on what I needed to do to get started. I always like to do some reading first, because it allows you to scope out the topic and to know what questions you should be asking when you dive into more detail
• Create a learning document – I capture any useful articles, ideas and quotes in a big Word document that I can come back to and organise later
• Get some training – there are many virtual and face to face training courses on stand-up comedy, I chose to go on a 2-day course at Komedia in Brighton. It gave me some good basics and a first experience of standing up in front of other people and trying to make them laugh
• Do a lot more reading – For me this means reading just about every book and article I can get my hands on I’m starting to summarise it in my learning document. I tend to find that once I have read 10 to 20 bucks then I’m hearing the same things over and over again, and I feel like I’ve got good overview of the topic. Beyond that you do learn something new from every book, but diminishing returns do set in. I know that reading is not everyone’s preferred learning style, but it is high on my list, someone who knows about the subject has taken the time to spend many hours writing down what they’ve learned, it’s a great way to short circuit experience and avoid making the obvious mistakes
• Do some writing – apply the techniques I’ve learned to writing some jokes and developing my thoughts on character and style
• Get some coaching – I’m lucky enough to have been able to afford to work with a couple of professional comedy coaches. The ideas are all mine, but they gave great suggestions on timing, structuring a set, joke technique, performance tips etc. It’s particularly useful to go through a video of a performance with them and get some feedback
• Do some gigs – there is no substitute for getting out there and standing in front of an audience. At the end of the day the only measure of whether something is funny is whether people actually laugh. Even professional comedians think they have done well if 50% of their new material gets a laugh. I am aiming for 2 gigs a week.
• Record, review and rewrite – record every time you perform, play it back and evaluate which jokes worked well, which could be improved and which should be cut. I keep going back to the checklists in my learning document to make sure I’m trying all the different techniques
• Focus on performance as well as content, there is a lot to learn about how to adapt your material to the audience, handle a dropped glass, a distracted crowd, or a group of drunks – you can’t get that from a book
• Build an online ecosystem – connect to other comedians, people you meet on the circuit, comedy writers and clubs. Is the best way to find opportunities and inspiration
• Build your reputation at every performance, get to know people in the industry and be easy and pleasant to work with
• Plan for progression – build up a bank of tried and tested material to enable you to move to longer opportunities. Open mic sessions start with five minutes and many clubs are reluctant to give you much more than this until you’ve done, in some cases, 1-200 gigs. The top comedians you see on TV who sound so spontaneous have practised their craft thousands of times

Six months in I’ve made a start on all of these and have a pretty solid first 5 minutes And lots more ideas I’m keen to test out. Next is to build out more material for longer sessions, keep practising and improving and develop more advanced skills – particularly managing timing and the ability to adapt the material in the moment to the people in the room.

What’s very motivating to me is that it’s evident there is a huge amount to learn. If it was simple, it wouldn’t be so much fun. In a year’s time I am sure I will have lots more tips to share.

Aren’t comedians born not made?

If you have natural talent or have one of those faces that people laugh at on sight (not always an advantage in life, but in this case helpful) – that’s got to help.

But beyond that nearly everything in life is about hard work, learn the techniques, apply them rigorously, practice and continuously improve.

It doesn’t sound funny any more

There is a fair argument that if you deconstruct jokes too much, they stop being funny, but you will find that there are some basic patterns and even rules underlying the way the world’s top comedians (and I do not put myself in that category 😊) structure their acts – and that’s because they work.

It’s a bit like learning music, you have to learn the scales and the notes through repetition and practise before you can give rein to creativity and create something new and beautiful.

So whatever you want to learn, how could you apply some of the principles from this process to do it faster?

In the meantime why not follow my progress on Instagram @kevandoescomedy