Showing posts tagged 'comedy'.
"Magic has no mystery to magicians. We work variations of standard methods. What will seem new or baffling to an audience is simply a technical challenge for professionals. If an innovative new illusion is developed, it is only matter of time before the effect is reproduced by others.
— Christopher Priest, “The Prestige"
This first sentence, Magic has no mystery to magicians, reminds me of how I quickly became aware of the most common joke forms when I started writing my own jokes. And suddenly jokes didn’t seem so magical. When you see how they work and that often it’s merely a template sentence with new words.
Being aware of these forms is great and using them actively will help you a lot, especially when you’re starting out. But true elegance comes when you can use the same tools and not make the template obvious.
* * *
As one of my favourite comedians, Daniel Kitson says after a joke in the beginning of one of his free-to-download, though a bit old shows (as I remember it and often quote it); That joke was basically a pull-back-and-reveal, you just didn’t notice, ‘cause it was executed to perfection. I think it was my third listen, but finally I understood and my jaw dropped.
(Quote via Magic has no mystery to magicians – marks.dk)
Source marks.dk
If I’m on stage and the audience aren’t buying my style or my jokes, the last thing I do is try to give them something else.
It took me some time to figure this out and a lot more time to learn how to do the opposite. The audience don’t know when and how I’m at my funniest. I do. I’m the person who’ve seen me perform the most times. By far. That’s why, rather than trying to do what I guess the audience wants from me, I have to seem even more certain when things are tough that I’m completely aware of what I’m doing, and that nothing has gone even the slightest wrong yet.
Most audiences would love for you to be funny if you just seem certain enough that you are.
Stand-up.dk is, I suppose, the closest thing you can get to an american stand-up special in Denmark. But then not really because it’s usually only 12-14 minutes per comic. Still it was the first stand-up show on TV which makes it a classic.
When I was young and lived back home with my parents, I didn’t think much about stand-up comedy. If something was on the TV I would watch it and enjoy it but nothing more than that. I remember though seeing Lasse Rimmer (you know him from the clip above) and liking him. I don’t really know what set him apart from all the other comics but I do know that I can still remember some of his jokes.
This year in May I’m doing stand-up.dk for the first time — and guess who I’m sharing my program with. That’s right, Lasse Rimmer.
Word.
In English please
One week ago in Aarhus during the Aarhus Comedy Festival I performed in English for the first time in my comedy career. I didn’t prepare for it but between two shows I went to an English open-mic with some Aarhus friends and the host there, a wonderfully talented brit whose name I can’t remember (sorry lad), put me on the list for 5 minutes when he found out I was one of the Danish comedians.
I have no English bits but I have my Danish by now classics (not really) which I thought I’d just sort of translate on the spot and see where it went. And it went through the roof. BOOM. I don’t feel bad about bragging — I tore the place apart. Sofie was there and she says it too (in Danish). As anyone, including myself, could’ve foreseen translating jokes isn’t just translating the words which was what I did. And that became the act — me struggling with my punchlines because only by then I would realize, the joke was gone in my quick and rough translation.
I had to leave right afterwards, so I didn’t see any more of the international comics (super stars, I’m sure) but I was told, that they all struggled with following me. Which is awesome. Suck it world, I’m taking over.
And then I went straight to another show, Comedy In The Dark‚ where I was mediocre. So don’t worry Jante Law I’m already back on the ground.
