By Chris Head. My book, “A Director’s Guide to the Art of Stand-up”, begins by exploring ways of identifying and developing your persona as a stand-up comedian. This is your unique voice, outlook and identity that you present on stage. It stems from your actual self but is not identical with your off-stage self.

Finding this persona is key. It’s your on-stage character, a simplified, exaggerated version of yourself. Understanding this character helps you find the angle you’ll take on any given topic and the kind of jokes and material you’ll write for yourself. In effect you have a character you’re writing for. A character based on your actual self.

Finding this persona is the Holy Grail of stand-ups and typically takes hours of stage time to find, but I can offer some insights that can help in the process and might even speed up nailing your on-stage voice. In the first chapter of “A Director’s Guide to the Art of Stand-up” where I discuss persona, I explore status, archetypes, attitudes, likeability, shadow and self-awareness. I’ll introduce these in turn and then, below, is a link where you can read the entire first chapter for FREE (which covers some further angles) so you can start thinking about how to apply all this to your own act.

And in my brand new book “Creating Comedy Narratives for Stage & Screen” I further discuss stand-up persona in the opening chapter, considering positives and negatives and also persona games, both of which I also introduce below along with another link where you can also read this material for FREE. (Alongside stand-up, this new book also covers sketch and sitcom, and discusses improv too).

Let’s now go through these aspects of your stand-up persona in turn.

Status

What is your funniest status? In my model of stand-up’s status you can be:

‘high status’, ‘low status’ or ‘audience’s mate’.

In high status you look down on the problems of the world and your life (or simply on the audience) from a lofty position of insight and wit (eg Chris Rock). In low status you are put upon by the problems of the world and your life (or by the audience and the performance situation) and are struggling with them (eg Lee Evans and Brian Regan). In audience’s mate status you share the problems of the world and of life with the audience, and you laugh at them together. (eg Sarah Millican).

This approach can be finessed by considering a primary and secondary status. Stewart Lee is a high-status comic but, as he says, he is always undermining his status in order to not become objectionable! So he might be looked on as high-status (primary), low-status (secondary). And I identify Brian Regan as low-status above, and certainly when he acts out himself in various situations he plays the fool, but he is a great friend of his audience so perhaps he could more accurately be described as mate-status (primary) and low-status (secondary). And returning to Sarah Millican, there is certainly a strength and at times fierceness to what she does, so I’d see her as s mate-status (primary), high-status (secondary).

You may have some insight into your own status on stage, but even better ask people who know your act well how they see you, and have them reflect it back to you. When you have a clearer understanding of your status, you can more confidently embody it on stage.

Archetypes

In the book, I also discuss how the twelve Jungian archetypes can be keys to your persona. Again, rather than trying to figure out which archetypes you embody on stage, it can be more effective to ask someone else how they see you. They work especially well when used in combination. On p.8 of the first chapter you will find the complete list and an explanation of how they work in stand-up. But here for example are two: sensualist and sage. Bringing them together you get Russell Brand. Finding the two archetypes that you embody – or at a push, three! – can also help define who you are on stage.

Attitude

Next in the book (p.9 – p.11) I consider attitude. Your attitudes are key aspects of your stand-up persona. For example, here’s Al Murray’s Pub Landlord with a typically no-nonsense attitude: “We do not go in for philosophy in this country. We have our own system. It’s called wondering”. (You can find the persona of a stand-up character in the exact same way we are discussing incidentally).

In stand-up, an effective persona will have both positive and negative attitudes. The positive being why we like you and the negative being why we find you funny. Where an act is overwhelmingly negative there is something about their charm, cheek or sheer front that is appealing and enables at least some people to warm to them. At any rate the funny attitudes are the negative ones. There is precious little funny in positive, well-adjusted, reasonable, forgiving and sensible attitudes to things! Once you have the positive and the negative, the light and shade, on your ‘palette’ of attitudes’, it can be effective to jump between them as the Godfather of Alternative Comedy, Tony Allen, describes. (See below for more on positives and negatives).

Self-awareness & Likeability

In the opening persona chapter in my Director’s Guide to Stand-up book, I also consider self-awareness. There are two ends of the spectrum. How aware is the version of you on stage?:

1. Self-aware. Insight into own failings. A high-status or audience mate stance.
2. Totally unaware. Here you see yourself one way, and the audience see you completely differently. Eg, you see yourself as a hit with the opposite sex, the audience see you as a loser. The comedy comes from the gap between how you see yourself and how others see you. A low status stance.

Another aspect of self-awareness is this: is your on-stage character aware that they doing a comedy performance? Or is your character just talking about the world and their life without meaning to be funny? Or even knowing or realising why they are funny? This is a niche area, but can really pay off when you play the weirdness entirely straight (eg Emo Phillips).

I also consider the question of likeability in stand-ups. Stand-ups who have a likeable persona, are flawed with a clear shadow and yet aware of it (high self-awareness) and struggling to be better can be very likeable to an audience (for Brian Regan). These stand-ups care and want to be better but keep tripping themselves up.

If however a stand-up’s persona is comically unaware of their shadow (low self-awareness), then they are more tragically comic and less obviously likeable. Alternatively they can be aware of their shadow (their nastiness or rudeness or aggression) and simply not care. This can work (for instance Frankie Boyle), where the stand-up does behave appallingly BUT does and says the kinds of things we the audience would love to do if we were bold or reckless enough. They are aware of their shadow, don’t care and we love it.

But typically for the audience to laugh they have to like you – even acts that are deliberately nasty are still in fact liked by those who laugh with them. So try and identify what makes you likeable and do more of it. Self-deprecation is one potential route to likeability. Also, identifying your negatives and then balancing them with positives can help and also opens up the opportunity to switch from positive to negative (and vice-versa) which can amplify the laughs.

Positives and negatives

This very week I worked with an act who, despite having been going several years, feels he hasn’t fully developed his persona. On watching videos of his act it struck me that his issue is that he’s too nice! The audience like him and the material is good, but he hasn’t developed the negative side to create a comic friction with his positive qualities. Another way of looking at this is to think in terms of persona and shadow, where the shadow are the negatives that undermine the positives of the persona.

Sitting opposite him, I took the liberty of reading out a list of negative qualities I felt he could develop. (Having softened him up with some positive ones). I’ve compiled a table of 108 negative qualities and 108 positive that you can see for free via the link below to my “Creating Comedy Narratives for Stage & Screen” book.

In a class, I’ll get the group to pick three positives and three negatives for each comic. Then I’ll get them to stand up and share the attitudes that the group identified in them. This in itself generates much hilarity, especially when the qualities ring true for that person. For example:

“I am affectionate, cheerful and tolerant. But I am also arrogant cowering and resentful”.

Once you’ve identified this persona/shadow for your persona, how might you set about exploring it in action? One way is to pick a situation where you were expected to be positive but in fact you were pissed off about it (eg a work situation with clients or a family situation where you were meeting someone new). You then try and talk about it in a positive way to the audience but the negatives keep slipping out and revealing your true feelings.

In the writing of it, get yourself flipping from positive to negative, from persona to shadow, repeatedly. It’s these sudden changes that can make it really funny rather than having one negative attitude throughout.

Persona games

Finally, in my new book “Creating Comedy Narratives for Stage & Screen” I boil all of this down into my concept of persona games. Read all about this for FREE via the link below.

You can read the complete opening chapter about persona from the stand-up perspective in Chris Head’s book “A Director’s Guide to the Art of Stand-up” here:

https://bloomsburycp3.codemantra.com/viewer/5b6331436b2f0700011dd33b

And you can read the first 17 pages of Chris’s new book “Creating Comedy Narratives for Stage & Screen” here which includes the positives and negatives and Chris’ discussion of persona games.

https://bloomsburycp3.codemantra.com/viewer/607d587152faff0001578d16

Buy:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Directors-Guide-Stand-up-Performance-Books/dp/1350035521 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Creating-Comedy-Narratives-Stage-Screen/dp/1350155756

For more info about Chris and the courses he runs:

www.chrishead.com

By Eleni Young. Using social media when you’re posting to your friends and family is easy, you already have an audience who’s interested in you and you don’t have to think too much about what or when you post. But when you’re posting for an audience who doesn’t know who you are, social media can be a bit more tricky, just because Auntie Sue and Dave think your hilarious on your personal account doesn’t mean you’re going to get the same reaction on your Facebook or Instagram comedy accounts.

Identifying your audience

That’s easy isn’t it, it’s people who like comedy, d’uh! Yes, but there are billions of people out there who like comedy and there are hundreds of different types of comedy, so we have to be more specific. You know what you like, but do you really know what your audience likes? Targeting your audience to get those all important likes and follows isn’t just about throwing your content out there and hoping for the best, you need to be specific about who you want to reach and who is going to keep coming back for more. Here’s a few questions to get you started:

● Who are they? Is your comedy aimed at more men or women or both? How old are they? Where do they live? Peep Show is a great comedy, but dry humour tends to work better in the UK than it is in the US.

● What types/style of comedy does your audience like? If your comedy is similar to or has the same traits as other comedians or shows, target those audiences. If you ever do advertising on Facebook, it will ask you about audience likes and interests.

● Which comedy/TV personalities do they follow? Have a look at those pages/profiles to see what type of content they’re putting out. Are they always just posting their own content or are they doing live videos (Facebook Live or IGTV)? What hashtags are they using that could also tie in with your content? You don’t have to use everything they are doing (be smart with your content and ensure yours is still original) but you’ll be able to see from the level of engagement how their audience (your target audience) is reacting and if it’s something you could incorporate in your content.

● When is your audience online? This is a key question to ask yourself. There’s no point marketing yourself at 8am on Saturday if your audience don’t bother logging on until 1pm on Monday. If you have a Facebook page or business Instagram account, check your analytics and look for times and days for when your audience is interacting or viewing your content.

One of the best things about identifying your audience is that unless you diversify your content drastically you don’t have to do it again. Having said that, put 10 mins aside once a week to go through your analytics to check you’re still getting the right audience and getting the engagement you want.

If you decide to advertise online, you’ll be asked all these questions and more and it’s easier to work this out now than when you want to post an ad and have a ton of questions screaming at you on your screen.

Now don’t worry, it may seem like a mammoth task, but it’s really not. Grab a pen and paper and start scribbling who your ideal audience is, you’ll find that you already know these answers, it’s just that you’ve never had to write it down before. So, what are you waiting for?

If you want to find out a bit more about Digital Marketing I’m hosting ‘An Introduction to Digital Marketing’ on Thursday 22 October at 10:30am (BST) online, tickets are normally £15 but for Comedy Crowders use code IntroFr33 to get yours for free!

Writer and journalist Joanna Tilley has launched a script companion service that focuses on female characters. Here she tells The Comedy Crowd the reasoning behind the new Pay What You Can service and what it can offer comedy writers.

In 2018, The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain found that only 11% of comedy episodes on TV were written by women. The findings came just months after 76 female writers signed an open letter accusing drama bosses of not giving them primetime opportunities.

To its credit, the industry has been quick to respond with a raft of comedy and drama commissions driven by women. Pure, the brilliant Back to Life, the even more brilliant I May Destroy You, are just a few of the female-led shows to hit our screens. Former ITV comedy commissioner Saskia Schuster continues her excellent initiative Comedy 50:50, which aims to achieve parity for female writers by holding events, workshops and offering paid TV opportunities.

However, despite these positive steps, comedy still skews male and almost without exception male-written scripts are dominated by male characters.

After watching a number of male-scribed comedies recently, I believe there is still a long way to go when it comes to female representation. Sitcoms written by men usually feature male leads (Code 404, The Young Offenders, Man Like Mobeen, Dave, Sliced) or a male majority cast (People Just Do Nothing, Plebs, Norsemen, The First Team). Even two of my favourite programmes, Brooklyn 99 and What We Do In The Shadows, over-represent men.

Perhaps it is unsurprising that men like to write men, but as a viewer I find it frustrating when time and time again I am following a male protagonist, or when I see these amazing female actors in the bittiest of parts.

For me, the issue of female representation is not just about getting more women to write comedy (although this is crucial), it is about improving the way men create and develop their female creations in the first place. Because until we reach that pivotal place of 50:50, male writers are still predominantly responsible for ensuring women are represented and their voices and issues heard.

Sadly, the situation at the grassroots feels no different from the top. In fact, without the layer of producers and commissioners checking work, it can be worse.

Over the last decade, I have regularly attended London Comedy Writers, a group where sitcoms are read out by actors every two weeks. I have read and listened to many scripts and while there’s some brilliant work on show, the way male writers represent women is hit and miss. In a room mostly filled with men, the script feedback frequently returns to the lack, or weakness of, female characters. Even when writers start with an equal gender split, it is usually the male characters that deliver the action and excitement.

male writer: people complain when I write female characters, then they complain when I don't write female characters!!! there is no possible solution to this

— Ken Cheng (@kenchengcomedy) September 25, 2020

In the aftermath of #MeToo and Time’s Up, I wonder if it has ever been more difficult to write female characters and storylines. With gender and sexual politics in the spotlight, the audience are ready to jump on anything that doesn’t feel authentic or socially responsible. It has never been so easy to offend, and whether that is right or wrong, it is where we are at.

However, the worst thing that could happen is for men to just stop writing female characters and for them to leave it to female writers. Instead, men should be working that extra bit harder to ensure their female characters are credible enough to weather any controversy. Going forward, we need an abundance of strong female character, not safe ones.

This is why I have launched a script companion service that focuses on the development of authentic female characters. Whether it is at the start or final draft stage of a project, I want to keep an eye out for areas where men can slip up – and provide a sounding board for people to bounce off their ideas. You can find out more about my Pay What You Can service here.

The scenes from The Inbetweeners that most likely to come to mind are its gross out moments, such as Simon’s testicle doing the catwalk or Neil casually punching a fish to death. But it is not these moments that really define the show and in fact, as argued in this excellent video from ‘Full Fat Videos’, the puerile moments are only funny because of subtle character development throughout the series.

On the face of it ‘The Inbetweeners’ characters are all stereotypes but in certain understated, perfectly executed moments they are shown to be real people, not caricatures. It is these scenes that facilitate much of the comedy in the series. They provide a crucial authenticity – as viewers we believe they are all friends, and we believe and can relate to their relationships with each other.

As creators, if we can establish this authenticity, then the scope and effectiveness of comedic moments in our shows will be enhanced markedly.

For more articles and videos like this that get your creative juices flowing, plus a round up of all the latest comedy opportunities subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

There are amazing opportunities for those interested in writing for children’s TV, but what puts many off is the perception that they would have to dumb down or simplify their writing.

Increasingly kids TV has moved away from the fairytale Disney story and character tropes towards a more nuanced style that blurs the line between children and adults. The standout example of a show that does this well is SpongeBob Squarepants. SpongeBob is a show that combines narrative styles in a fashion that delivers some of the moral messages you would traditionally expect, but does it with more than a nod to an adult audience too.

This Wisecrack video explores this idea further and could provide some inspiration as to how you could  write for children’s TV without compromising your style.

For more insights on writing for Children’s TV check out our recent Q+A with ‘Horrible Histories’ writer Dave Cohen on Comedy Crowd TV (access for a whole year currently costs only £12)

For more articles and videos like this that get your creative juices flowing, plus a round up of all the latest comedy opportunities subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

It’s incredible to think that something as consistently good as South Park has less than a week turnaround on each of it’s episodes, especially when the industry standard for animation is around 8 months! This video by ‘Nerdstalgic’ looks at why the creators put this constraint on themselves, stating that some of the benefits are:

• Authenticity
• Relevance
• Combatting Censorship
• Freshness
• Innovation

For more articles and videos like this that get your creative juices flowing, plus a round up of all the latest comedy opportunities subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

Sven Pape’s ‘This Guy Edits’ Youtube channel is a fantastic resource for editors, regardless of their level of experience. This video is aimed at those who are new at the craft, listing 7 tips that will have a huge impact on the quality of your work, including:

• How to keep a scene tight (but also when you should consider a long setup)
• How to use editing to guide your audience
• How to use misdirection
• The importance of blinking
• Trusting your gut

For more articles and videos like this that get your creative juices flowing, plus a round up of all the latest comedy opportunities subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

‘More to That’ is a blog by Lawrence Yeo that uses simple, distinctive illustrations to craft thoughtful posts. Yeo describes himself as a visual storyteller, and in this post he explains how he takes an idea and creates a narrative journey in which visuals play a vital role. There are some brilliant insights in this guide including:

• How to get creative at the intersection of your personal interests and landscape of ideas
• Where epiphanies come from
• How to create a visceral journey for your audience
• What makes a great reveal
• How and when to use visuals to maximum effect

It’s a long piece but its packed with insight and inspiration for your next comedy project. Read it here.

For more articles and videos like this that get your creative juices flowing, plus a round up of all the latest comedy opportunities subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

Pixar have a rigid 22 rules of story telling that they apply to every project. In this video Youtuber KaptainKristian looks at one in particular:

‘Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.’

He argues that it is this rule that makes Pixar stories so deeply relatable. It is the driving force behind Pixar’s rich layered characters, particularly compared to some of their less nuanced Disney equivalents.

For more articles and videos like this that get your creative juices flowing, plus a round up of all the latest comedy opportunities subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

In this series Youtuber ‘Nerdstalgic’ picks out an episode of a renowned show that encapsulates what it does best. The Simpsons is a particularly interesting case study, having departed so far from what used to make it great. Simpsons fan or not there’s lots for creators to learn from this analysis of the episode ‘Marge Versus The Monorail’ including how it:

• Embraces the absurd and the limitless nature of animation
• Is densely packed with a variety of types of jokes, including ‘Homer’ humour, visual gags and satire
• Pins these jokes to an engaging narrative
• Deploys ‘parody with purpose’
• Involves all its key character in a meaningful way

For more articles and videos like this that get your creative juices flowing, plus a round up of all the latest comedy opportunities subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

This is a really interesting and thought provoking video about why certain comedy shows lose their appeal over time. In picking out examples the creator, Renegade Cut YouTube Channel, hasn’t exactly gone high-brow (Dumb and Dumber, The Mask and Austin Powers feature strongly) but nonetheless there are some really interesting principles highlighted.

Using specific cultural references is clearly a surefire way to ensure eventual irrelevance, but perhaps most interesting for creators to consider is the fact that jokes depend on the element of incongruence and woven into that is the need for the audience to be surprised. So creators of comedy who aspire to be original and remembered need to be constantly looking at novel ways of structuring, framing and delivering their funny scenes.

For more articles and videos like this that get your creative juices flowing, plus a round up of all the latest comedy opportunities subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

The Comedy Crowd TV 2020 Showcase, in association with BCG Pro, is our quest to find the best independent comedy to showcase at a special screening event the LOCO Comedy Film Festival at the BFI (initially scheduled for May but now postponed to Autumn). We were looking for submissions to fall into one of 4 categories – Music, Animation, ‘How to’ or Famous Faces.

We received a Comedy Crowd record 800 entries which were judged by a diverse panel of comedy fans drawn from our community. We’re delighted to announce the top 3 videos, which are available for you to watch now…

1st Place – Mini Cheddah

Scooping up the £250 prize and created by Laughing Stock, this is a brilliant musical sketch about the pitfalls of collaboration.

2nd Place – Chris Martin From Coldplay Heals The Sick

Ticking the boxes of music, animation, famous faces and then creating it’s own box that no-one has ever seen before. By Victor Hampson.

3rd Place – Jingle Bells, Batman Smells

So goes the infantile adaptation of a Christmas classic, but Batman isn’t getting the joke. By Christian Jegard.

So there you have it! We can’t wait to share with you some of the fantastic entries that made it onto the shortlist. Suffice to say that independent comedy is alive and well. As soon as we have a date for the screening we will let you know.

For this competition we were delighted to have the support of our friends at BCG Pro, the UK’s leading online platform for new, emerging and established comedy professionals. They provide tools and services for those looking to advance their career in comedy on stage, screen, radio or behind the scenes. Visit comedy.co.uk/pro and enter the unique discount code ‘ComedyCrowd’ on the join page to get £5 off your first year’s membership.

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