Tag: stand-up comedy

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Stage Presence and Off-Stage Presence

The other week, I was listening to the BBC radio programme Desert Island Discs from 2018., where Lauren Laverne was interviewing the comedian Alan Carr.

I’ll say upfront that I’m ambivalent about his work. I enjoy watching it if I happen to catch him on TV, but it’s unlikely I would deliberately seek out gig tickets.

Although he’s known for stand-up comedy, he made a remark early in the programme about how he doesn’t watch other comics because he doesn’t enjoy it. He went on to say that if he’s part of a bill, he’ll only show up for his section and then leave. You can listen to the relevant section on BBC Sounds from the 10m 30s mark.

When I hear about a comic with the stature of Alan Carr saying he doesn’t watch his peers, it sounds like Stephen King saying he doesn’t read novels. Frankly, it comes across as dismissive towards the other acts, even if this doesn’t seem to have hurt his career.

For as long as I’ve done spoken-word events, there’s been an expectation that if you’re invited to perform as part of a bill, you arrive before the start and watch the other performers until the end. It feels like a collective experience and, in some cases, helps to gauge the mood of the room. In more elaborate productions, showing up early also gives the crew time to run a technical rehearsal.

I find I always learn something from the other acts: a turn of phrase, a particular delivery, a way of holding the audience, or – every so often – how not to do these things.

In one positive example, I’m reminded of a Josie Giles gig in Birmingham shortly before the pandemic. I knew a little about her work, and next to nothing about Joelle Taylor who was on the same bill. Having watched a lot of poetry, I thought I’d seen it all before. Yet both their performances were so well done that I walked out of that building saying, ‘I didn’t know you could do that with words.’

There are negative examples too, like the amateur actor who thought he would try stand-up comedy. I’ve no idea how he stayed in his theatre group without being able to read a room, but some of his gags were incredibly out of date and offensive, and nearly every one fell flat.

So I’m curious about other people’s experiences. Do you stay for the whole show when you’re performing, or do you dip in and out? Is this just an expectation for some types of gigs but not others? Am I, in fact, in the minority?

That was where the entry was meant to end, and I clicked Save yesternight with a view to redrafting this entry today. I then received a message from a couple of local writers. They’re looking to bring a poetry evening to Dundee in April, and we’ll need to discuss the type of material they want.

Whoever is on the bill with me, I’ll definitely be listening to their performances.

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Laughs and Larks in London

Every Sunday, the Comedy Store in London hosts an improv evening, and it has done since 1985. I’ve occasionally considered going, but a few weeks ago, I was finally given a good reason to take the trip.

The actor Neil Mullarkey has been part of the Comedy Store Players since its inception. A few weeks ago, he announced his retirement, with his last show set to take place on 4 January 2026. I’ve been casually following his career since discovering him at the Edinburgh Fringe in the early 2000s.

So I made the visit on Sunday, taking a train to London, then the Caledonian Sleeper back to Scotland on the same night. The plan contained a number of variables, any one of which could have ruined the whole intererary, but it all fell nicely into place.

Aside from the aforementioned Mullarkey, the cast of players that night comprised Josie Lawrence, Richard Vranch, Lee Simpson, Rufus Hound, and Steve Edis on piano. The first two also were part of the regular cast for Whose Line is it Anyway?

The first half is all about short sketches, many of which are based on predefined setups. In Freeze Frame, a cast member could freeze the action and take the place of another actor. In Three-Headed Expert, three of them have to answer with just one word each, form a sentence with the others.

The second half follows a more play-like structure. In this case, it was a murder mystery set in the 1920s, with the action taking place in an organ loft. An honourable mention goes to Rufus Hound, who played it as a silent film actor, despite the musical element.

Almost every one of the scenes originates as an suggestion from the audience, who took up most of the 400 seats. It’s clear the players have been honing their skills over many years, drawing on a toolbox of voices, phrases and moves, however ridiculous the premise.

Although Neil Mullarkey’s retirement marks the end of an era, the Comedy Store Players are bigger than any one performer.

In 2024, Ruth Bratt became the first new member to join the core group in three decades, a sign that the troupe continues to evolve and that the Sunday night show will be with us for a long time to come.

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Speak now, or forever hold your piece.

Last week, a friend asked me to give him feedback on a piece he’d written and performed to camera. As he’s not yet ready to go public with it, let’s call him Jack.

I would have given him honest feedback if it had been no good; I don’t think it helps to give praise unduly. I listened to it a few times to determine whether it stood up to repeated listenings, and to listen carefully to the words and their meanings. I concluded it was almost ready for a live audience, and I gave him tips about how it might be improved.

It’s hard to define performance poetry. Some pieces work equally as well on the page as on the stage. Spoken word also falls somewhere between rap and stand-up comedy. Rap generally relies on wordplay and repetition, while stand-up is often infused with the comic’s personal experience, and both elements can be present in performance poetry.

While I don’t have a catch-all answer, there were three elements in Jack’s piece that – in my opinion – made it suitable for performance.

Firstly, he started with a strong image and good use of internal alliteration. The first line alone revolved around ‘L’ and ‘T’ sounds. As we moved on, we began to hear more alliteration, plus complex and slant rhymes.

English: Eminem performing at the DJ hero part...
English: Eminem performing at the DJ hero party with D12 on June 1, 2009 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A great example comes from the Eminem track Stan. This video starts at lines where the rapper has stacked up the ‘ee’ sounds of ‘dream’, ‘sleep’ and ‘scream’, but the piece as a whole is largely lines of a regular length with an often-slant AABB rhyme scheme. You can see this when the lyrics are written on the page.

Secondly, Jack took his opening lines and repeated them near the end, although not verbatim. This type of repetition can be vital tool in performance, as it helps to cement ideas in the mind of the audience.

More regular repetition can be used to create an onomatopoeic effect, but be sure to do it consciously, as random repetition can sometimes feel as though the poet is trying to pad out the words. I can think of two great examples. The first piece is safe for work: Francesca Beard with The Fluffy Song, with a reputation helps bring out the voice of the eponymous dog. The second piece is decidedly NSFW: John Cooper Clarke performing Evidently Chickentown, where the swearing lends the effect of a hen clucking.

Thirdly, Jack’s voice in the video infused the piece with a different slant benefit had been read on the page. It wasn’t in his normal register, but reminded me of Murray Lachlan Young: rich and defined with an intentionally snobbish undercurrent.

Of course, anyone who reads a performance piece will bring something to it. Andrea Gibson is quite the opposite of Young, packing a lot into a poem and rattling through it with barely any time for breath. There’s no wrong way of performing, as long as you aren’t forcing yourself to do something unnatural.

When Jack is ready to go public with his work, I’ll post it here and I’m sure you’ll see what I mean.