Individual stand up.
Plan:
-Christmas
-Dad is santa
-Thrown up on the floor Christmas Eve, drinking
-Realisation
-"Reindeer is ill?"
-Tone of voice has to change
-Voices: child, mum
First attempt=
So Christmas has just been, and i'm not a child anymore but we all still remember that Christmas that we "found out". I remember my finding out like it was just yesterday. Let me just set the scene...
It was Christmas morning. The tree was flashing (a bulb was broke but £1.99 for a whole set to go around the whole tree from Aldi though, bargain!), the stockings were hung with care (the netting was ripped and the ribbon was frayed) and there was an aroma. You know what it's like, it's Christmas! There are bound to be smells.
So anyway, I was around age six at the time and I had spotted the presents, the big and the small (thanks for the mug auntie Shiela, i'll be sure to return the favour when I am rich like you, yet we still receive the same shit for Christmas, you bitch!) But I wasn't too bothered at that moment, no, the magic was still there for me. I rushed over to the mantle piece, but not to check what was inside my "stocking", oh no. Straight to the plate of nibbled on mince pies and hopefully half a glass of now warm milk. I tottered over and what did I find?
A pile of sick.
was santa ill? Did one of the reindeers eat too many carrots? Did I do it all wrong and santa was actually lactosentolerent, and that wasn't really sick? I mean, it was brown...
But no. The magic had left. The realisation soon kicked in when my dad finally waddled down the stairs, beetroot faced and smelling of milk, suspense and shame.
'Merry Christmas kids!'
This was my very first attempt, after trying this routine out a few times I changed a few things and added a bit more too. My routine differed and I then had a longer routine that was a lot tighter and got to the point a lot faster. One of the changes I decided to make was the joke about the "stockings", umming and arring on what to use between-
"I mean, are they really "stockings"? It would be weird if we started filling real stockings, I mean if my dad did anyway..."
or...
"Are they really "stockings"? You wouldn't find them in Anne Summers!"
My next decision was then to scrap the stockings joke altogether and instead shorten the whole Christmas routine so that I could add in more of a routine without basing it all on one.
I then thought about what I could add to my routine that still made it fit however. I thought of using...
-The Easter Bunny: rabbit droppings not actually chocolate.
-Tooth fairy: sneaks in your room (stranger), goes under your pillow, leaves change.
-Boogie Man: never slept, what's in there now?
-Family lies: black tongue (from red wine, always thought they constantly lied.)
-Mum knows everything: "Mum, how do you explain a cat?" overheard real conversation.
I then made all of these categories into their own short stories and tried them each out in front of my peers to see what worked best. From what I was told worked best from what I had, I then made another stand up routine with what worked best and this was my completed routine. The process then turned to timing how long it took for me to read out my stand up and practicing so I knew the lines off by heart and knew how to say it confidently and well. I scrapped lots of parts in my stand up and only kept the best bits, but I only could of done this with my process of elimination.
Whenever I altered something in my routine, I always tried it out first before either adding a section in or scrapping something altogether. This really helped me because it shown me what bits made others laugh from what I could make up. I tried many different things for my routine to make others laugh such as involving the audience as much as I could without going over the rule of three, using relative topics to my audience and also trying to not be myself in a way. I did a lot of research into 'how to present a stand up comedy act', and from all of the tips I could find I used the ones that worked for me. The tips that I found were mainly to stand confidently and then I would feel it, to make sure that I knew my routine off by heart so that I was never stuck when on the floor, to use the microphone correctly (not too loud- right up to the mic, and not to quiet- not too far away from the mic.) All of these tips really helped me so I found that looking into exactly what I was doing worked from me. If I hadn't of researched exactly what I was doing I do not think I would of performed as well as I did and would of been very nervous so the practice did help, including infront of my peers and also by myself.
I would agree that the most helpful thing that I used when taking part in the stand up unit was saying out my routine to my peers in the spotlight on the mic in college. This gave me a real feel of what I was doing and on the night it really did help me a lot because I was then used to it and was not that nervous.
The sketch.
From the first idea of a second act, I knew I would be working in a group because I think that I work well in groups and especially for a sketch it would be great. We then all discussed different sketch ideas, discussing what would work well for us and what wouldn't. Our first idea was to create a birthing scene with Lauren being the mother giving birth, Jess being the dad who gets it all wrong and doesn't know what to do with himself (common in the real life situation), me being the midwife (not really very helpful) and Beth being the baby (her inside of a cardboard box with a baby dolls body, moving around and crying, etc.) However when really deciding on this, we realized that a selection of us would be doing all the work, whilst the others would be doing hardly anything throughout the sketch. This then made up re-think the situation and work towards a common goal of making sure that we all had equal parts. The idea then sprung of keeping the idea of babies but altering it slightly. We all agreed that the head joined with a baby dolls body was quite funny to have and we really liked this so wanted to keep this and add it into whatever final idea we chose.
We then moved onto an idea of all of us in one giant box, all being babies but with different attitudes. One baby being drunk/sleepy, one a snob, one a 'typical Starbucks/UGG boots/pink loving' girly-girl, and a gangsta too. We tried this out numerous of times and realized that a lot of problems came with this idea such as, we didn't want to talk in a basic sequence but when we did talk we over talked each other, we couldn't think of much material to go with the scenario as all the personalities were so different and also how we could make each personality baby so different without stating the obvious in costume. This made us think whether to scrap the whole idea or to try to make it all work some how.
We then all thought of an idea of one person holding the whole operation up such as a parent or any other family member, our first instinct being it should be a mother. Again we tried all of this out and came to realize that it was not as funny as we had pictured. It now worked, yet the material still was not strong enough to pull of at the comedy show. We then had another think and thought if it could be a better idea to have a dad instead of a mum, dressing up one of us girls as a man in big 'dad-like' clothing, an obvious moustache and a confused, messing everything up mannor. Once we had all come to this conclusion we knew that this would be the funniest out of all of our ideas.
We then started to put this all together and buy a set for ourselves. We put together a large babies crib out of a cardboard box and sheets. We then got accessories such as the baby doll bodies and dressed them in different baby clothing outfits (still slightly keeping with the first theme of different personalities), and we then got things like bibs (this hid our necks more so it looked a lot more realisitic), baby toys/teddies, milk bottles, baby food, baby bowls, dummies, etc. This all worked in our favor too because we then decided to use these things to be funny such as spitting out the food and drink at the dad, spitting it at each other and then refusing to take it at all. We knew that this would be seen by the parents at the show and it would remind them of what it was like and make them laugh more as they could easily relate.
Once all this had been sorted we again tried a few different ideas with what else we could do, such as the babies talking in silly accents to one another once the dad had gone out but then we scrapped this as we couldn't think of anything hysterical to say and also the fact that we over lapped each other again. We then all made the decision to not do this, and base the whole joke on the dad messing everything up and the fact that we had baby bodies.
The final performance after trying this out numerous times in front of our peers and altering things from time to time, it was found funny and all of it ran smoothly. We did have to change our 'dad' from Lauren to Ryan but this was still funny to our audience. I really liked creating this sketch and all of the changes that we made from the very start to our final piece. We all worked really well together as a team, and we all made sure that all ideas were taken into consideration and tried out to see what worked and what didn't for us.
Whenever I altered something in my routine, I always tried it out first before either adding a section in or scrapping something altogether. This really helped me because it shown me what bits made others laugh from what I could make up. I tried many different things for my routine to make others laugh such as involving the audience as much as I could without going over the rule of three, using relative topics to my audience and also trying to not be myself in a way. I did a lot of research into 'how to present a stand up comedy act', and from all of the tips I could find I used the ones that worked for me. The tips that I found were mainly to stand confidently and then I would feel it, to make sure that I knew my routine off by heart so that I was never stuck when on the floor, to use the microphone correctly (not too loud- right up to the mic, and not to quiet- not too far away from the mic.) All of these tips really helped me so I found that looking into exactly what I was doing worked from me. If I hadn't of researched exactly what I was doing I do not think I would of performed as well as I did and would of been very nervous so the practice did help, including infront of my peers and also by myself.
I would agree that the most helpful thing that I used when taking part in the stand up unit was saying out my routine to my peers in the spotlight on the mic in college. This gave me a real feel of what I was doing and on the night it really did help me a lot because I was then used to it and was not that nervous.
The sketch.
From the first idea of a second act, I knew I would be working in a group because I think that I work well in groups and especially for a sketch it would be great. We then all discussed different sketch ideas, discussing what would work well for us and what wouldn't. Our first idea was to create a birthing scene with Lauren being the mother giving birth, Jess being the dad who gets it all wrong and doesn't know what to do with himself (common in the real life situation), me being the midwife (not really very helpful) and Beth being the baby (her inside of a cardboard box with a baby dolls body, moving around and crying, etc.) However when really deciding on this, we realized that a selection of us would be doing all the work, whilst the others would be doing hardly anything throughout the sketch. This then made up re-think the situation and work towards a common goal of making sure that we all had equal parts. The idea then sprung of keeping the idea of babies but altering it slightly. We all agreed that the head joined with a baby dolls body was quite funny to have and we really liked this so wanted to keep this and add it into whatever final idea we chose.
We then moved onto an idea of all of us in one giant box, all being babies but with different attitudes. One baby being drunk/sleepy, one a snob, one a 'typical Starbucks/UGG boots/pink loving' girly-girl, and a gangsta too. We tried this out numerous of times and realized that a lot of problems came with this idea such as, we didn't want to talk in a basic sequence but when we did talk we over talked each other, we couldn't think of much material to go with the scenario as all the personalities were so different and also how we could make each personality baby so different without stating the obvious in costume. This made us think whether to scrap the whole idea or to try to make it all work some how.
We then all thought of an idea of one person holding the whole operation up such as a parent or any other family member, our first instinct being it should be a mother. Again we tried all of this out and came to realize that it was not as funny as we had pictured. It now worked, yet the material still was not strong enough to pull of at the comedy show. We then had another think and thought if it could be a better idea to have a dad instead of a mum, dressing up one of us girls as a man in big 'dad-like' clothing, an obvious moustache and a confused, messing everything up mannor. Once we had all come to this conclusion we knew that this would be the funniest out of all of our ideas.
We then started to put this all together and buy a set for ourselves. We put together a large babies crib out of a cardboard box and sheets. We then got accessories such as the baby doll bodies and dressed them in different baby clothing outfits (still slightly keeping with the first theme of different personalities), and we then got things like bibs (this hid our necks more so it looked a lot more realisitic), baby toys/teddies, milk bottles, baby food, baby bowls, dummies, etc. This all worked in our favor too because we then decided to use these things to be funny such as spitting out the food and drink at the dad, spitting it at each other and then refusing to take it at all. We knew that this would be seen by the parents at the show and it would remind them of what it was like and make them laugh more as they could easily relate.
Once all this had been sorted we again tried a few different ideas with what else we could do, such as the babies talking in silly accents to one another once the dad had gone out but then we scrapped this as we couldn't think of anything hysterical to say and also the fact that we over lapped each other again. We then all made the decision to not do this, and base the whole joke on the dad messing everything up and the fact that we had baby bodies.
The final performance after trying this out numerous times in front of our peers and altering things from time to time, it was found funny and all of it ran smoothly. We did have to change our 'dad' from Lauren to Ryan but this was still funny to our audience. I really liked creating this sketch and all of the changes that we made from the very start to our final piece. We all worked really well together as a team, and we all made sure that all ideas were taken into consideration and tried out to see what worked and what didn't for us.
