Stand-Up Comedy
The 3035 Solo - 2023/2023
In this research portfolio I will critically reflect on my final stand-Up performance project, process and my key learning outcomes. I will show the key critical, theoretical concepts I learned in the module. A case study of analyzing one stand-up practitioner, supporting documentation of my progression throughout the module followed by a conclusion to how I made my last performance at the king's head.Through utilising and analysing Mo Gilligan's comic style and persona as a case study, I will explain how his stand-up comedy effected mine.
Analysing The Comedians
In the first week of comedy started by watching a lot of comedy and discussing it. Analysing the comedians, comic techniques and approaches. We focused on the comedians comic performance style, what are the techniques they used and how they applied it on stage.
Online dating material using key words from a road man persona comic voice. I now looking back at this am much pleased that I changed it through out the module to my final performance at the King's Head was very different to this. This is something I have a hard time to look at compared to the final performance and that due to the comic voice I have now is something I am much happier with because it connects to a much larger audience.
Road Man Persona
Here my learning curve was that people in class understand how I am and that's what made them laugh. the feedback I got was to be a lot more like myself and truthfully, this after made a lot of changes from being mean and taking the mick to I actually I am this way persona but I do the road man persona because I find it funny. I then started writing a more dimensional personas so that I could connect to a wider audience.
Prayers & Religion
We were set a task to create some material that I could make from prayers and religion. I done this by recording myself from ideas that came to head. The first was think how I could make it funny, the thing that came to my head was my funniest experiences I had in life around religion. I created this video of me talking about my religious study teacher from secondary school, sitting in a prayer position.
Family and Religion
I wrote about religion and coming to the UK, how I changed when I talk about forgetting about religion. I done this by giving a pause and then saying the punch line. The thing I feel didn't work is energy on stage and how I would change it is make a much more understand to the audience by engaging a lot more with them. Asking first do we have any religious people here, then having a rant about what makes it annoying.
Lockyer, S. and Pickering, M. (2005) Beyond a joke : the limits of humour. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Pretentious poetry Club
I tried this material by creating a rap/poetry and using a background audio by a song from Adele. I tried to make it as bad as a rap as possible imitating road man slang from London in this Character. The rap lines were me rap/singing about a potential girlfriend "Chantelle", taking the mick and talking about her mum and dad.
Davies, H. and Ilott, S. (2018) ‘Mocking the Weak? Contexts, Theories, Politics’, in Comedy and the Politics of Representation. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing AG. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90506-8_1.
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Stand-up
List of favourite words
I made a list of my favourite unique funny words that comes to my head when its comes to writing material. On one side of the paper I wrote a list of adverbs and on the other side of the paper I wrote the adjectives. then drew lines across putting them together and seeing what are the most funny ones. It made me think of words that rhyme and make the audience think.
Case Study: Mo Gilligan
Mosiah Bikini Gilligan well known for his observational comedy, found global success after uploading comedy clips on social media. Comedy has now become a cultural landscape like never before, plays have been taken over by an social media industry, pioneered by YouTube. Mo Gilligan was the comedian that my material related mostly similar too and helped me with my type of comedy, as he has an eye for everyday behaviour and puts it in his writing: being broke, geezers on the town, boyfriend-girlfriend push and pull. His type of comedy you have to be fearless as they are all well-worn stand-up subjects.
Gilligan makes us meet childhood Mo, so giddy when his mum tells him to “keep the change” he forgets what he is meant to buy. Mo talks about struggling to keep it real and keep his job at the perfume shop, which related a lot to my performance at the king's head final performance as I talk about starting university and struggling to keep it real with my road man friend Samir also having a girlfriend that studies sustainability but still being that alban that grew as a London boy.
Mo Culligan turns his personal stories growing up in London as a kid, makes of accents and impersonations of the people he had around from different places like work and family. He focuses on making the audience feel like they can relate especially to the ones in London who grew up like him.
He makes humor from past life experiences and suffering, he twists that negative energy and makes it comedy from his challenging experiences, leans into rather than ignoring the challenging stuff and turns it into material. Mo’s “different types of guys at nightclub” videos, as he traces individuals experiences of moving in with their partner, once permission is secured, going to a lads “night out”.
Analysing Mo Gilligan
Different Types of people at work
His first job was firmly within that bourgeois territory: flogging fancy, pricey candles in the Jo Malone shop in the Westfield Centre in West London. It sets up one of the most impressive routines here, about one of his mandem paying a visit, that plays on the gulf between the two worlds.
When ambient music kicks in underneath this section, it’s intrusive, a theatrical device that undermines the illusion that this is just a likeable bloke having a spontaneous chat – but it ultimately leads up to a dramatic beat that has an impact.
Gilligan's use of music is unequivocally an asset, making time-honoured tales about a night out drinking, taking selfies and defusing fights feel more urgent and contemporary than they otherwise would. He talk about keeping it real with the mandem and work colleagues that he didn't like takes the mick"you right meet" imitating with sarcasm.
He relates to the audience when he talks about work and people he doesn't like, the managers talks about the staff room, telling the audience he just wants to be left alone, most people feel the same he puts himself in the same intelligence as the audience. Gilligan is undeniably a slick, assured entertainer, more than enough honesty and likeable humility shines through.
What its Like to go Clubbing
Gilligan has become a you tube sensation online, the material is cosily familiar, but he brings it to smooth, sparkling life, always sharing in the amusement he generates. The set pieces are usually role plays with Gilligan inhabiting many of the characters who populate his online work. With various music in the background throughout this special has a festival, night-club feel. There are moments where he acts like a rapper and has dramatic, upbeat music playing and he asks the right side and left side to compete against each other. Audiences do love audience participation.
Couples living Together
He relates to the audience as he talks about "taking out the rubbish", being very observant MO's comedy style is honest and relatable. Stories about home life, family life, working in retail, wanting to kick children, the black community, there is something for everyone in this comedy special.
He comments on the reactions from the couples on the crowd and impersonates them, overdoing their persona, how excited they get he gets lots of laughter.
He doesn’t have any dull moments, Mo completely captivates and holds the stage and entertains, the best is definitely the end section which shows women for the hilarious drunk messes we can be, and Mo’s dancing impression is spot on.
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Techniques
Methods Put to Practice
On the book"Transforming life experience into stand-up Comedy" one of the key methods Double talks about is when he broke his leg while jogging and needed an operation. He took this hard lived experience into stand-up practice material, but "rather on 'insider' knowledge focusing on the experimental and embodied knowledge"
( Double,2017,p143).
He learned that "The key method used to develop know-what from know-hows that of central reflection- pausing, standing back and thinking about what you are doing"( Double,2017,p143).
I used this method in my practice by first reflecting back on my video recordings and watching the times I could pause, go faster and timing of my stand-up lines. This helped me create a better persona on stage, making it truthful what I did. This led to a better audience engagement.
Double, O. (2017) ‘Tragedy Plus Time: Transforming Life Experience into Stand-Up Comedy’, New theatre quarterly, 33(2), pp. 143–155. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X17000057.
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The Greyhound Pub
For the Greyhound pub I used the material I created in class through out the module, putting together what I thought was my best piece of work. My biggest obstacle was the relationship with the audience. I tried to get in the same intelligence as the audience with the opening line commenting on the weather outside.
My nerves got to me and my energy levels dropped low after I lost trust from the audience. I tried to gain it back when I changed the subject and talked about a story I had with a Uber driver, who was deaf. I played one role which didn't make the story as clear to the audience, my best laughter from the audience was when I was being more observant.
A lot of humour came back to me when I was being more analytical. I could have been using more language of participation to make the audience interact which creates better engagement with the show. I didn't do this because I just went on with my material without checking in on the audience by engaging with them a lot more. One of the things I learned was gaining trust with respect to both that act's comprehensibility and its ability to bring about participation.
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I wrote this down on my notes and feedback from my Tutor and took it into practice in class rehearsals.
Getting The Joke
Learning curve
I learned that word use that I tried at the Greyhound did not work as well as the in the class that's because most people in class understood and got the joke whether as at the Greyhound no one knew me. This was my learning curve that made me change how I felt performing from using slang to a genuine three dimensional persona "Double’s claims that stand-up is a uniquely audience-dependent genre of performance, and that comics’ development require learning how to interact with myriad environments"
Getting the Joke: The Inner Workings of Stand-up Comedy, 2nd ed. By Oliver Double. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2014; pp. 536.
The King's Head - Final Performance
The King's Head was a great venue to perform as its one of the oldest, best respected and loved stand up venues in London. There was great list of comedians who have performed there as I could see on the pictures around the walls.
I was prepared by having my written comedy and practiced at home and in class. My main challenges was being able to stand in front of the mike and engage with the audience I tried practicing holding the mike but that was hard as I would keep wondering about. I decided to keep the mike on the stand and this helped me keep a stance and look more comfortable on stage.
Walking on stage for my performance I took my time and took a breather, making eye contact with audience showing confidence I said "Do we have any Immigrants in the Room", this made the audience engage and then I followed that on with saying how I came to the UK and told the story of me as a kid growing up in London, going to school. I had a three dimensional person as I imitated my teacher and mum and me how I translated to her as she didn't speak English.
The pauses and setbacks gave me a lot of time and made the performance clear to understand. I transformed my life experiences with my friends having anxiety and only used the "road man" Persona on that part of the performance and changed to my honesty to the public saying that I was only do this to make my friends happy. This got a great laugh because the audience appreciated me as who I am rather that a person I done before in class and at the greyhound.
Writing
`Transforming life experiences into stand-up
I thought of my traumatic life experiences, both physical pain and emotional trauma and turned it into stand-up material. I thought of the best ways the story would be funny, the first thing that came to my head was me coming to the UK as an Immigrant. I looked into how these experiences can be structured into individual gags and routines. I wrote about the hard times of my friend having anxiety and me having it hard to eat out with him.
My comic voice for this part of the stand up was a road man that speaks in London slang, but went back to being truthful and what I actually thought telling the audience I was just trying to please my friend (Double,2017,p144).
Double, O. (2017) ‘Tragedy Plus Time: Transforming Life Experience into Stand-Up Comedy’, New theatre quarterly, 33(2), pp. 143–155. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X17000057.
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Persona
Comic Voice
My persona on stage was a mixture of real life events, turning the volume up on certain traits and down on others. I appeared on stage like the normal me, being very open to the audience having a very welcoming attitude. The only thing I wore that was different, the Dr Martins shoes. It made one of my jokes more understandable. I appeared on stage the same intelligence as the audience having a understanding voice that everyone would understand.
Observational
I learned from my performance at the Greyhound that my starting line was not engaging with the audience as they could not get the joke as much. So I changed my attitude and became more observational and made a starting line everyone could understand get and recognise.