Have you asked yourself, “How do I become a stand-up comedian?” There’s no one pathway to learn stand-up comedy. Dave Hughes took over four years on the open mic scene, whereas, some, like Chris Franklin and Matt Okine rose to fame quickly. But what is absolutely universal is that there is no substitute for practice. The more often you repeat …
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 of your new business pitch do people write you a cheque, or check their pulse? Stand Up, Stand Out In the age of the …
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 have to deal with a heckler. Hecklers fall into two categories – they criticise your joke, or they get personal, and criticise you. But be …
There’s many ways to write a joke. At the Hard Knock Knocks stand-up comedy school, we teach three. Our favourite joke structure is the Normal-Normal-Twist. The Normal-Normal-Twist takes the audience on a familiar journey and then suddenly zigs sideways, with a surprise. And no, we didn’t invent this. It’s been used by comedy greats for aeons, even Jerry Seinfeld. Seinfeld demonstrates …
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 – could you be the next hot stand-up comedy act out of Australia? Well, Yes. Possibly. So what do you need to make it big? Well, firstly you don’t need to be …
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 full swing, the city is crawling with hundreds of comic masochists. So what makes them do it? What makes someone leave a perfectly safe seat, climb onto a stage, grab a microphone …
Ever wondered who learns stand-up comedy? There’s three types of people who enrol in a stand-up comedy course, at the Hard Knock Knocks comedy school here in Melbourne. Those that want to be a stand-up comedian, those that have a bucket list to tick off, and upcoming best man speech givers. Comedians of the future It’s not difficult to fill …
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. But this is what you don’t know about stand-up comedy: 1. It’s old! Stand-up comedy began in the 18th century! We’re in the 21st century now, which means …
There’s many reasons why you should learn stand-up comedy with the Hard Knock Knocks. So which category do you fit into? The Future Comic The most obvious reason is that you want to be a stand-up comedian. And that’s a great reason. Melbourne is comedy central in Australia, thanks mostly to the ‘Melbourne International Comedy Festival’ every March, but also …
