I hate comedy courses – that's why I'm running one | by Mark Olver

I hate comedy courses – that's why I'm running one

by Mark Olver

I am not a fan of the comedy course. I don't think people can learn how to be stand-up comedians in a classroom. And I don't think people can be taught how to be stand-up comedians by people who aren't stand up comedians. Or who aren't good stand-up comedians.

I am aware of how many great comics have been on comedy courses, and I imagine that Logan Murray's courses and Jill Edwards courses are brilliant and useful. But they seem to be anomalies.

I know that comedy courses have a function in giving people the confidence to get on stage for the first time, to learn a bit about how to start stand-up, to kick start their life of service stations and waiting for payment for gigs, but I think there might be a better way, a fairer way.

I am highly suspicious of people charging people 65 quid, or 100 quid, or whatever quid to tell people how to do a pull back and reveal, or that the funny thing should always be the third thing in a list, or even how to take a microphone out of a microphone stand.

I believe that the skills of comedy can help everyone with their confidence, public speaking and the ability to cope with, and learn, from dying on your hole. I also believe that people shouldn't have to pay to learn these things.

If you put a price on a comedy course then surely you are excluding a massive part of part of people who might be able to add a slightly different flavour to the world of comedy.

The BBC’s Danny Cohen shouldn't just be talking about making sure every panel show has at least one woman on it, Danny Cohen should be starting a discussion about the limited range of faces, voices and experiences we get to see doing comedy, in clubs, on radio, or on TV. The lack of a genuinely diverse comedy circuit.

On March 16, I am running a free comedy course in Bristol. It will be two hours long, there will be no note taking, no actual performing, just, hopefully, an insight into how stand-up comedy sort of works, and a push in the possible right direction.

There are lots of things the course will not teach people. I will probably not talk about joke construction (I don't feel qualified) or the specifics of building a set and getting gigs, but I will try and give people a push in the right direction.

And that direction is towards gigs. And open mike nights. And places comics hang out.

Watching comedy is the best, and only, way to become a comic. Watching as much as possible, figuring it out, deciding what you want to do, making friends with other comics, learning from them.

And then doing it.

So it might take you longer than seven weekly sessions on a Saturday morning to master it, but then none of us ever actually master it. OK, one of us has, but he doesn't count because he is some sort of comedic freak of nature. And he does theatre now anyway.

Mark Olver’s free comedy course will be at the Hen and Chicken, North Street, Southville, Bristol, on Sunday March 16 from 1.30pm to 3.30pm.

Published: 2 Mar 2014

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