I’ve worked in media for longer than I care to admit, but even longer than that I’ve wanted to write and produce, comedy specifically. This has been my goal ever since a little me saw my first episode of 'Only Fools and Horses' and thought, “this is fantastic!”
Many years later, when I had just started my maternity leave, I decided I really should do something about this before the little time thief popped out. So, at 5 months pregnant, I managed to stop chundering long enough to direct my own comedy short. A few months later, never having completely finished editing it, I went into labour and had a horrible time. Complications during the birth gave me one of those dreaded, life-flashing-before-your-eyes moments. I had two thoughts; firstly, everyone knows I love them, and secondly, I wish I’d finished my comedy short. My third thought was I wish I’d gone private. But that’s another story.
With the tiny terror safely out I got dragged/settled down into motherhood. Having a baby cut my spare time down to 0.001 seconds and my patience down to zero. Realising time was ticking, I made the time to write; I sent off scripts, I entered competitions, I networked, I met other budding writers. Everyone seemed to have the same problem; no one will take a new comedy writer seriously (excuse the pun). Comedy writers not only have to be good writers, but have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that their writing is funny. You would think that writing a funny script would be the proof of the pudding, but apparently it’s not enough.
So, as a sarcastic new mum with no time or patience, I thought how can someone demonstrate they know what makes good comedy? The answer, of course, is to make people laugh. An agent can say you are not funny, but they can’t argue with an audience laughing at your stuff can they?
So what is the quickest way to do that? Stand up comedy. It doesn’t require anyone but yourself, and you quickly find out if you were born without a funny bone in your body. With a script you can wait months to get a response, if you ever get one at all, and you are still none the wiser as to why it wasn’t right.
Doing some stand up comedy would definitely give me instant feedback, but I needed some balls. BC (before child) time is abundant and balls are few. After Child, time is a thing of the past but balls can be borrowed; pretend they are yours and everyone thinks you’ve always had them. Stand up is like marriage, it’s a scary commitment, you need something old (your bankable jokes) something new (your experimental material) something borrowed (a big pair of balls), and at most gigs, something blue.
As with anything big in life, you start slowly. I booked myself on a Funny Women workshop, figuring that if it was painful it would only last a day. Luckily it wasn’t. It was a small handful of women – each one had different motivations, but the same reason to be there: just to see if they COULD.
The Funny Women workshop gave me the confidence to do a long-form stand up course and my first gig, (which went very badly, but I already had the second gig booked so what can you do?) And the rest, as they say, is history.
It’s weird that people call you an act, I don’t think I’m an act – I just tell people about my life. I don’t consider myself a performer, mainly because I’m not. You have to have a complete self-belief to be a true performer, I just want to make people laugh, be a great manager and not have to wear make up to work everyday. Other women ask, isn’t it terrifying? Yes, of course, I get butterflies when I look out onto a sea of drunk skinheads and realise this may not be my target audience, (Motherhood anecdotes are probably not their thing). But the worst that can happen is no one laughs. The worst that can happen is nothing; no one dies, no one gets sued. I’m not a doctor, I won’t amputate the wrong leg.
The worst that can happen is nothing. I like those odds.
So, like a growing number of multi-taskers in the world, stand up comedy is part of what I do because it’s a great way to learn and hone a lot of skills; writing, timing, public speaking, communication, and last but not least, comedy. So what are you waiting for?
Al Stary Media Producer/Writer
