We think the Challengers at last Thursday’s Funny Women's Challenge the Men would agree that the great standard they reached couldn’t have been met had it not been for their mentors.
The winner of the Challenge, Steven Williams, had comedian Courtney Cornfield as his mentor. Courtney highly recommends the experience: “if Lynne Parker ever asks if you fancy mentoring men to prepare them for their very first ever stand up challenge for a charity event: say yes! The men were great to work with and it was rewarding to see these fledgling comics spread their wings and fly from the nest of our mentoring sessions and into the mic.”
“We felt their pain, we tweaked, destroyed and laughed at their jokes. I think the fact that the mentors were all women was liberating for the men (some even burnt their boxers…) and allowed themselves to be vulnerable. The latter, I feel as comedian is essential.”
Steven Williams described Courtney’s mentoring as “astounding!” It seems, for Courtney, the experience of mentoring was just as valuable as being mentored: “I gained a lot for my own comedy as it allowed me to view the process of creating a routine objectively. I don't' think you need to be a high profile finance director to do the maths on this one. It all adds up to a great experience.”
Another fan of the Funny Women mentor programme is mentor Rosie Wilby, who lent her comedy expertise to Lewis Malka: “Mentoring Lewis was great fun, not least because I got escorted into the high security London Diamond Bourse for our sessions – though didn't get near the diamonds! He had great ideas and a good sense of a punch line when we first met.”
It was getting these ideas down took the duo some time. “It took a while to get pen to paper and drafting them into a structure. Originally he was going to talk a bit about his family but we stuck to the key theme of his work in the jewellery industry as we only had five minutes.”
However the material did get written and it was worth all Rosie and Lewis’s hard work: “it struck me on the night how streamlined and focussed his delivery was with no superfluous words – often an easy temptation to fall into. 'I'm not nervous at all' he said to me on the night, surprised. He'd woken up that day knowing he remembered his jokes. I told him a few nerves were fine if they did come but that he should just enjoy it!”
Another Challenger who had no problem with nerves was runner up David McQueen, who had Funny Women founder Lynne Parker as his mentor: "David already had a sense of what he wanted to say having had a little experience of stand up in the past and a talent for comic timing. It was fun to mine his family heritage for comedy effect and he set the bar high for the rest of the Challengers as I programmed David to open the show. Cool, calm and professional – I couldn’t have asked for more."
Challenge mentors Teresa Jennings and Janet Bettesworth found their mentees and all the challengers to be thoroughly modern men. Theresa told us: “My mentee was receptive and attentive to all suggestions and it was delightful to help him.”
In fact, Funny Women Challenge the Men appears to have stumbled upon some men who completely shatter outdated masculine stereotypes.
Charles Wahab’s mentor Janet Bettesworth said: “To be absolutely honest, the thing that struck me the most was how enlightened these men are; and when I say 'enlightened', I mean 'humble', and when I say 'humble', I mean: not assuming they'd automatically know more than a woman about any subject under the sun, and talking over them. In other words, they were all very willing to learn – all of them seemed to view women as their equals and as the icing on the cake were very friendly, charming and funny.”
Pictured top to bottom: Steven Williams and Courtney Cornfield; Lewis Malka and Rosie Wilby; David McQueen and Lynne Parker
