The Melbourne International Comedy Festival, of MICF for short, kicked off last week, aged 33. Only two other festivals are bigger – the Montreal ‘Just For Laughs’ festival at…
Your last presentation would have been a raging success. The introduction was confident, your structure clear, and your conclusion evoked a hearty applause. “Are there any questions?” you asked,…
Starting out in stand-up comedy in Australia is tough. Open mic gigs are in the evenings, often on a weekday, and the audience is usually comprised of other comedians with zero interest in your gags.…
Are you thinking of entering Raw Comedy 2019? Early expressions of interest for are now open. To enter just click here. Got no idea what I’m talking about? Well, what you should know is thaw…
Comedian Ben Horowitz knows Raw Comedy well – he entered three times. His first brush with the amateur competition was in 2002, and although he did pick up two footy club gigs immediately…
Practice is essential to a stand-up comedy career. Sure, the School of Hard Knock Knocks stand-up comedy course will allow you to hit the ground running, but even we acknowledge that it’s still…
Guest post by Marty Wilson When you’re presenting to a group, do their eyes sparkle or gently glaze over? If you’re giving a speech, are they nodding in agreement, or just nodding off? At the end…
Practice is essential to a stand-up comedy career. Sure, the School of Hard Knock Knocks stand-up comedy course will allow you to hit the ground running, but even we acknowledge that it’s still…
Practice is essential to a stand-up comedy career. Sure, the School of Hard Knock Knocks stand-up comedy course will allow you to hit the ground running, but even we acknowledge that it’s still…
Did you know that funny people, especially those that like dark humour, have higher IQs? Interviewed on Today Extra, Marty Wilson elaborated on the results, uncovered by Austrian researchers.…
IF YOU’RE NOT FROM MELBOURNE or you are, but have never left the house because you believe exam results are more important than a personality, then there’s a slight chance that…
PARKING INSPECTORS AND COMEDIANS have one thing in common – abuse from the general public. No matter how good your jokes, no matter how many friends you have in the audience, one day you will…
YOU KNOW EACH JOKE BY HEART. You’ve practiced a hundred times. But still, there you are, staring at the sea of faces from the stage, with a metaphorical tumbleweed rolling through your head.…
THERE’S MANY WAYS TO write a joke. At the School of Hard Knock Knocks stand-up comedy course, we teach three. The one that we’ll share on this blog, is our favourite joke structure…
THE SHORT ANSWER IS ‘NO’ – unless you have a twin and your dad’s name surname is Nelson. But we weren’t talking literally, were we? We were talking metaphorically…
BUNGEE JUMPING, PARACHUTING and stand-up comedy. These are possibly the three most legally terrifyingly activities that one can do today, and yet, with the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in…
THERE’S THREE TYPES OF PEOPLE who enrol in a stand-up comedy course, at the School of Hard Knock Knocks here in Melbourne. Those that want to be a stand-up comedian, those that have a bucket…
THERE’S A STATUE OF BURKE AND WILLS at the corner of Collins and Swanston Streets, right next to the Melbourne Town Hall – the centre of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.…
IF YOU ARE READING THIS, then chances are you like, nay, you love stand-up comedy. You love its rawness, its randomness, combined with the closeness you feel, of having a one-on-one conversation.…
JOIN VETERAN COMEDIAN, BEN HOROWITZ on March 20 to 24, at the Limerick Arms Hotel, in South Melbourne for five days of stand-up comedy training that culminates in your very own five-minute stand-up…
THERE’S MANY REASONS WHY you might be signing up for five evenings of stand-up comedy training. So which category do you fit into? The Future Comic The most obvious reason is that you want to…
A COMEDIAN COULD KILL ON ONE NIGHT, but bomb on another, with the only difference being the audience. Conducting an AUDIENCE analysis is one way of preparing before the big gig. Here’s the…
STAND-UP COMEDY CAN BE TERRIFYING. Jim Jefferies compares it to acting, stating that acting is “harder than a lot of things in life, but it’s not as hard as stand-up comedy.” If a…
JUST ABOUT ANY TOPIC is open for a comedian, but there is one thing you must not do – and that’s steal another comedian’s material. Even if you do steal a joke, it’s unlikely…
