A stand-up comedian’s job is to make people laugh or to convert the hall silence into laughter.
Sometimes humour is less humorous. To make it funnier the comedian needs to take help of their physical movements. The power of words verbally gel with appropriate physical motions is essential for a stand-up comedian to engage their audience in the laughter ride.
Creating humorous content is a challenging task for an individual stand-up comedian. Often it happens you say something to make your audience laugh but it is taken as a perceived insult by an individual. In a hall, your intention is to make everyone laugh, but would you call it a success where half of the people understand the humour, half of them don’t understand it and the rest of them feel it is derogatory? How will this be called as a successful show or a job satisfaction to a stand-up comedian? What is the purpose of the show? To make everybody laugh? Or to make a few people happy? This is something which needs to be thought of by a stand-up artist.
Handling controversies & criticism
If you specialise in insulting humour then own the consequences I.e., be ready to face criticism, legal action, trolls on the social media and the society. It is not to be forgotten that every region has a system of law which needs to be respected.
Content selection
When it is time to choose a content, it should be enjoyable and easy for the audience to understand. Try to avoid recreating something which is already a success. Because then you will be judged by the original performance.
Respect the land of law. Content which is deliberately presented with malicious intent to hurt religious sentiment of a class of citizens can put the artist behind the bar. People especially, content creators should discuss with their lawyer before presenting their content publicly.
Usage of one liner
When using one liner ,care should be taken that it should be easily understood by the audience. The audience does not have time to think when it comes to one liner humour. Because the span of one liner is quick and the response conversion in laughter should also be rapid. A good stand-up comedian is the one who can extract immediate gigs from the audience.
Voice health and sleep
For a stand-up artist it is utmost important to take care of the voice health. Because it is the voice which is the most important component in the life of a comedian. Any kind of Addiction is not good for vocal health. Similarly sufficient sleep is important when you have to perform in the crucial events. Sleep deprived artists cannot give 100 percent to their performances. Sleep apnea, weight issues and anxiety are bad for love stage performances.
Basic topics
It is not advisable to pick heavy topics for humour. Topics like population, corruption, religion and politics can lose audience interest. It is subjective though, a great content backed with a recipe of humour is like an assignment submission with a deadline. On the contrary, basic topics like life experiences like how you spend your day, whom you meet at a party, friends’ birthday, a day in school or college, a day in a barber shop etc, have a lot of scope for jokes.
Here, the real time conversation and finding or creating humour is easy and viable for a comedian.
Element of surprise
Audiences love surprises in an act of humour. For a stand-up artist effective storytelling with an element of humour have always worked. For instance, if you want to create humour out of a horror story, say. witch hunting, then your story must involve characters, their funny physical traits, funny rumours spread on the witch, the humour in the conversation that would happen in the night etc.
Learning and observation
This goes hand in hand. You must learn and observe things. Not only the people you meet or the events that happen in your life , your own personality, behaviour, mannerisms can help you to create humorous content. The key is to observe, learn and implement stuff on the paper as quickly as possible. The great Sir, Charles Chaplin can find humour in silence and machines, that is because he had that willingness to learn and observe things. Sometimes non-living things can speak more than the living creatures.
Keep yourself updated
For an artist, especially a stand-up comedian it is essential to know what is happening in the surroundings. A small piece of information can convert into an act of humour. Amidst the ocean of information, you must filter your reading and select your topic of interest.
Last but not the least, The audience buys tickets and expects a laughter ride from the performer. It is up to the comedian to choose a healthy or cheap way to perform. In real time, audiences’ reactions tell you whether your content is accepted or rejected.