Firstly, if you want to be a comedian just for money or to easily get girls to open their legs, I’ll advice you to stop reading this write-up. forget about comedy and find something else to do. Without the passion or love for comedy, you’ll never progress.
The funniest people I know are not the comedians, most of them are doing jobs that pay peanuts like cleaning offices, selling stuffs, etc. Without effort or work, talent is a waste.
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Well the bad news is that you can never and will never be ready, the only way to get ready to get started, I wrote sitcoms for years and never got on stage or touched a mic because I had stage fright and waiting for the right time until I discovered that the time is never right, you have to make the wrong time right.
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Welcome to stand-up comedy, nobody gets enough laugh or any laugh at all in their first performance. I remember my first performance was on an award night and it was horrible. I got comments like “You lame, comedy is not your calling, bla bla bla”, instead of letting them get into your head and quitting, go home and work on your mistake for a better performance. As of today, I can boastfully tell you that I’m still lame but working hard on performance.
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I’m sorry to tell you that I can’t help you here, every comedian has his/her format of writing routines, but every comedy write-up has a common pattern (zig zig zag pattern), you write in a pattern for a while then at the end, you flip over to another pattern that contains the unexpected SURPRISE. If your joke is very predictable like Nigerian movies, then it wont be funny. I personally prefer to write from daily experiences and my imaginations.
STAGE PERFORMANCE
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The most important ingredient in stand-up comedy is “Confidence”. Sometimes, your jokes might not be funny but because of the boldness in your as your express yourself with body language, people will laugh. If you don't enough confidence, you can build it up by doing things you fear most. You can walk up to your parents and tell them that you’re gay (even if you’re not). I was afraid of talking to girls in reality, So I built mine up by wooing a lot of girls per day, sometimes I challenge myself to get 10 girls’ contacts for the day, which I seldom save…
As an entertainer, what matters most to you is your relationship with the audience, Once the audience aren’t flowing with you, you’re losing the game. It’s very easy to gain the attention of the audience and very easy to lose it.
Here are tips that will lecture you how to easily gain attention.
1 Never copy other comedians’ jokes.
Trust me this is one thing you never want to do if you really want to succeed in the game. A lot of people follow up comedy shows and will easily know when are not creative. You will end up with soiling your image as a thief.
2 Don’t give the audience the impression that you’re not good enough.
This is something I see almost every upcoming comedian do on their first performance, they get on stage and like “Hi, my name is bla bla bla and its my first time” … Like what the heck? It’s like going to salon and the barber tells you that it’s his first time handling a clipper. I don’t think you’ll still be reading this bullshit if I started by telling you that am not good at writing or expressing myself in words. You want to be a pro? Then act like one.
3 Try your best to avoid popular topics
Topics like relationship, love, sex are been over used by comedians and the more audience hear them, the more boring they find them. Imagine going for a show and three comedians before you, emphasized on sex and relationship, and you’re climbing the stage to tell them the same thing they have been hearing for ages.
Don’t believe in the fallacy that some topics are funnier than the others, that’s big a lie. Every topic is funny, depends on how you present it from your perspective.
4 Try to present your joke in a way that everybody will understand
No matter how funny your joke is, I’ll never find it funny if I don’t understand it. That your close friends understood you and laugh at your jokes doesn’t mean that everybody will.
5 Don’t sugar-coat your words or feelings.
Always feel free to you express things just the way you feel… I also don’t really think it’s cool to crack a joke and start laughing or smiling before the audience do, it’s not up to you to decide if you’re funny.
7 Always use your two funniest joke for starting and the other for leaving.
Once you give out something very good, all attention will be yours. One thing i learnt is that your opportunity of getting attention depends on your performance on the very first minute you're on the stage. Try to give them another extraordinary joke that will keep them laughing and clapping for minutes as you leave.
8 Did you notice that #6 is missing?
If yes, thats the spirit. Always be observant enough to notice how stupid God created this world. Even as you’re on stage, notice when the slightest thing is out of place and make a joke out of it.
