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The Structure of a Stand-Up Comedy (2018)

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Re: The Structure of a Stand-Up Comedy (2018)

#41

Post by sangnoir »

tptacek wrote: post #28

This is impressive. But, those poor frogs. Snark aside, it also doesn't say that much; Ali Wong's biggest laugh comes in large part from the fact that all her bits are arranged to build up to it. Ok! If you're interested in this stuff, a good listen is Mike Birbiglia's "Working It Out" podcast, which is a little bit like Marc Maron's "WTF", but with an emphasis on workshopping bits in progress. Part of what makes it…

> Part of what makes it interested in this context is that Birbiglia is working out his next special (something that apparently takes years, which I guess shouldn't surprise me)

Comedians try out a lot material (and variations of the material) on tour: I attended my first live show expecting special-level of polish and was disappointed. The bits I remembered, that did end up in the special had much better delivery, after much tweaking to see what worked and what didn't, I'm guessing.

Re: The Structure of a Stand-Up Comedy (2018)

#42

Post by psd1 »

wonder_er wrote: post #18

I believe the humor and novelty and interestingness of this standup routine is related to the _density_ of information conveyance. I read this paper a while back, it was so good I wanted to make it more sharable: https://josh.works/driven-by-compression-progress-novelty-hu... The title is: Driven by Compression Progress: A Simple Principle Explains Essential Aspects of Subjective Beauty, Novelty, Surprise, Interestin…

Bollocks. The stand-up I will never forget is Stewart Lee, keeping two thousand punters in stitches while he spins a single joke out over ten minutes.

It's not a stupid theory but it misses masterful simplicity.

Re: The Structure of a Stand-Up Comedy (2018)

#43

Post by nickthemagicman »

psd1 wrote: post #42
wonder_er wrote: post #18

I believe the humor and novelty and interestingness of this standup routine is related to the _density_ of information conveyance. I read this paper a while back, it was so good I wanted to make it more sharable: https://josh.works/driven-by-compression-progress-novelty-hu... The title is: Driven by Compression Progress: A Simple Principle Explains Essential Aspects of Subjective Beauty, Novelty, Surprise, Interestin…

Bollocks. The stand-up I will never forget is Stewart Lee, keeping two thousand punters in stitches while he spins a single joke out over ten minutes. It's not a stupid theory but it misses masterful simplicity.

Norm Macdonald was good at that too.

Re: The Structure of a Stand-Up Comedy (2018)

#44

Post by psd1 »

glxxyz wrote: post #30

Saying that some/all other standups "just [tell] 100 individual jokes" is a straw man. She demonstrates textbook Stand-Up Comedy: From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand-up_comedy : "Bits (linked jokes) and chunks (linked bits) are an arrangement of interlinked thematic units from within the set or routine. [...] Stand-ups structure jokes, bits, and chunks to end on climactic laughter. [...] A callback is a referenc…

Story time.

My mates went to Stewart Lee one year. I turned it down. Lee did a bit about animal rescue and called the audience for baby animals, partly so he could scorn the shitty audience suggestions.

My mate called back to an earlier bit about Benedictine monks.

So Stewart Lee was doing the animal rescue shelter routine about nursing a sickly baby Benedictine monk back to health. Obviously my mate was super proud, and reprised the entire scene for my benefit later.

The next year, we all went again to Stewart Lee. All the material was new except, to my utter delight, he repeated the animal rescue sketch. And asked the audience for a baby animal.

After the expected unfunny offerings ("badger!", "giraffe!"), I shouted "premier league footballer". Which was, again, a callback to a bit earlier in that night's show.

So the animal shelter routine was Stewart nursing a little orphan baby premier league footballer.

That's a one-year callback. Also the start and end of my career in comedy.

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