HII HELLO
Stand-up comedy is a performance directed to a live audience, where the performer
stands on a stage and delivers humorous and satirical monologues sometimes
incorporating physical acts. These performances are typically composed of rehearsed
scripts but often include varying degrees of live crowd interaction. Stand-up
comedy consists of one-liners, stories, observations, or shticks that can employ
props, music, impressions, magic tricks, or ventriloquism.
A performer in this genre can be known by the masculine and gender-neutral terms
stand-up comedian and stand-up comic, or by the feminine term stand-up comedienne.
Performances can take place in various venues, including comedy clubs, comedy
festivals, bars, nightclubs, colleges, or theaters. [citation needed][1]
History
Main article: History of stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy originated in various traditions of popular entertainment in the
late 19th century. These include vaudeville, the stump-speech monologues of
minstrel shows, dime museums, concert saloons, freak shows, variety shows, medicine
shows, American burlesque, English music halls, circus clown antics, Chautauqua,
and humorist monologues, such as those delivered by Mark Twain in his 1866 touring
show Our Fellow Savages of the Sandwich Islands.[2][3]
Charles Farrar Browne (April 26, 1834 – March 6, 1867), better known by his nom de
plume, Artemus Ward, is considered America's first stand-up comedian. His
character, portrayed as an illiterate rube with "Yankee common sense," was
portrayed publicly by Browne.
The first documented use of "stand-up" appeared in The Stage in 1911, describing
Nellie Perrier delivering 'stand-up comic ditties in a chic and charming manner'.
However, this referred to a performance of comedy songs rather than stand-up comedy
in its modern form.[4]
The term appeared again in the “Stage Gossip” column of The Yorkshire Evening Post
on November 10, 1917. The article discussed the career of a comedian Finlay Dunn,
stating that Dunn was "what he calls a stand-up comedian'" during the latter part
of the 19th century. However ,the term may have been used retrospectively.[5]
Genres
Main article: Comedic genres
Bill Bailey performing in 2007
Stand-up has multiple genres and styles with their formats. Common ones include:
Alternative: Intended to counter the established figures of mainstream comedy.
Anecdotal comedy: Storytelling using exaggeration and humor.[6]
Character: A fictional persona created by the performer.
Deadpan: The deliberate display of emotional neutrality or no emotion, commonly as
a form of comedic delivery to contrast with the ridiculousness or absurdity of the
subject matter. This is also called dry humor, or dry-wit humor.
Insult: Consists mainly of offensive insults, usually directed at the audience or
other performers.
Musical: Humorous songs or musical parodies, sometimes without lyrics.
Observational: Conversation on the absurdities of everyday life.[7]
Satire: Ridicule of people, institutions, or ideas through jokes.[8]
Topical: Framed around a specific topic related to current events or dealing with
issues that are important or popular at the current time.
Wordplay comedy: Tends to involve the use of tactics like puns, double entendres
and rhymes to entertain audiences. Thus, delivery tends to be filled with many one-
liners.[9]
Stand up performances
Opener, feature, and headliner
Joan Rivers performing in 2009
In a typical stand-up show, the host, compere, or emcee "warms up" the audience and
introduces the other performers. This is followed by the opener, the feature, and
then the headliner. The host may also act as the opener for smaller shows.[10]
Proven comics tend to earn regular bookings at clubs that are part of a chain and
comedy venues. Jobbing stand-ups may perform sets at two or more venues on the same
day.[citation needed]
Open mic
Clubs and small venues often run open mic events; these slots may be booked in
advance or left for walk-ins. Comedians use open mics to work on material or to
show off their skills to get an opener slot.[11] "Bringer shows" are shows that
require amateur performers to bring a specified number of paying guests with them
to receive stage time.[12]
Festivals
As well as being a mainstay of the comedy circuit, festivals often also showcase
up-and-coming acts, with promoters and agents using the festivals to seek out new
talent.[13]
TV specials and albums
Experienced comics with a following may produce a television special or a comedy
album. It may be recorded on tour or at a show advertised and performed
specifically for the purpose. A TV special originally released on television, video
on demand, or in film theatre's may be re-released as an album on audio CD, LP
record ,or audio streaming. A "half-hour special" is typically between 20 and 35
minutes in runtime excluding commercial breaks and an "hour-long special" is
typically between 40 and 65 minutes excluding commercial breaks.[14]
Comedy set
Main article: Theories of humour
Tiffany Haddish, during a performance October 21, 2013, at Incirlik Air Base,
Turkey. Sponsored by Armed Forces Entertainment to service members overseas.
Tiffany Haddish performing in 2013
Routine
Stand-up comedians define their craft through the development of routines, which
they construct and refine with jokes and interconnected "bits." These bits form an
interwoven narrative, leading to the "closer," the final joke that ties the show's
themes together for a satisfying conclusion.
Most jokes are the juxtaposition of two incongruous things and are made up of the
premise, set-up, and punchline, often adding a twist, topper ,or tagline for an
intensified or extra laugh. Delivery relies on the use of intonation, inflection,
attitude, and timing as well as other stylistic devices, such as the rule of three,
idioms, archetypes, or wordplay.[15][16] Another popular joke structure is the
paraprosdokian, a surprising punchline that changes the context or meaning of the
setup.[17]
In order to falsely frame their stories as true or to free themselves of
responsibility for breaking social conventions, comedians can use the jester's
privilege, which is the right to discuss and mock anything freely without being
punished.[18][19] Social commentators have referred to the concepts of "punching
up" and "punching down" in attempting to describe who should be the "butt of the
joke". This carries the assumption that, relative to the comedian's own socio-
political identity, comedy should "punch up" at the rich and powerful without
"punching down" at those who are marginalized and less fortunate.[20][21] Many
comedians have criticized the cultural rhetoric concerning "punching up" and
"punching down", including Colin Quinn, who described the terms as a product of
activism and "not created by humorous people."[22]
Joke theft
Appropriation and plagiarism are considered "social crimes" by most stand-ups.
There have been several high-profile accusations of joke theft, some ending in
lawsuits for copyright infringement. Those accused will sometimes claim
cryptomnesia or parallel thinking,[23][24] but it is difficult to successfully sue
for joke theft regardless due to the idea–expression distinction.[25]
Audiences
Damon Wayans performing in 2007
According to Anna Spagnolli, stand-up comedy audiences "are both 'co-constructors
of the situation' and 'co-responsible for it'".[26]
In stand-up comedy, an unspoken contract with the audience allows for the
exploration of unexpected, controversial, or scandalous subjects. The reception of
a joke, whether met with laughter or disapproval, hinges on the audience's
understanding of the premise and appreciation of the punchline. A seasoned comic is
able to instantly react to the audience's reaction and use it to further their
narrative.
Stand-up comedy, distinct from traditional performing arts, features a lone
comedian directly engaging the audience. Success hinges on creating spontaneity,
fostering intimacy, and deterring heckling.
Part of the appeal of stand up is in appreciation of the skill of the performer, as
studies have shown that many people find the idea of standing on stage daunting;
research on the subject has consistently found that the fear of public speaking is
more intense than the fear of dying.[27][28]
The audience is integral to live comedy, both as a foil to the comedian and as a
contributing factor to the overall experience. The use of canned laughter in
television comedy reveals this, with shows often seeming "dry" or dull without it.
Shows may be filmed in front of a live audience for the same reason.[29]
Terms
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this
article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material
may be challenged and removed. (July 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this
message)
Bridget Christie performing in 2016
Beat
A pause specifically to create comic timing.
Bit
A section within a comedy show or routine.
Bombing
Failing to get laughs.
Callback
A reference to a joke earlier in the set.
Chewing the scenery
Being overly theatrical or "trying too hard" to get a laugh, especially when
failing.
Chi-chi room
The ritzy room of a nightclub or a comedy club with niche performances.[30]
Clapter
When the audience cheers or applauds an opinion that they agree with, but which is
not funny enough for them to laugh at. Coined by Seth Meyers.[31]
Corpsing or breaking
When the comedian laughs unintentionally during a portion of the show in which they
are supposed to keep a straight face.
Crowd work
Talking directly with audience members through prewritten bits, improvisation or
both.
Hack
A clichéd or unskilled comic.
Killing and dying
When a stand-up does well, they are killing. If they are doing poorly, they are
dying.
Mugging
Pulling silly faces to elicit a cheap laugh, often relying on exaggerated
expressions and physical gestures. This comedic technique aims to generate
amusement through visual absurdity and can be employed by performers to enhance the
comedic impact of their delivery.
Punter
A member of the audience. Primarily a British term.[32]
The room
The space where the performance takes place. Stand-ups can "read the room" to
interpret signs from the audience or "work the room" by interacting with the
audience directly.
Smelling the road
Claiming that one can "smell the road" on a comedian suggests they have compromised
their originality or pandered to get laughs while touring.
Tight five
A five-minute routine that is well-rehearsed and consists of a comedian's best
material that reliably gets laughs. It is often used for auditions and is a
stepping stone to getting a paid spot.[33]
Warm up
To warm up a "cold" audience during the opening act before the main show. Often
used at the filming of television comedies in front of studio audiences.
Work out
The process in which brand new jokes are introduced and polished over time.
Records
Phyllis Diller holds the Guinness World Record for most laughs per minute, with 12.
[34]
Taylor Goodwin holds the Guinness World Record for most jokes told in an hour with
550.[35]
Lee Evans sold £7 million worth of tickets for his 2011 tour in a day, the biggest
first-day sale of a British comedy tour.[36]
Ricky Gervais set a new Guinness World Record for the highest gross from a single
stand-up performance with his tour "Armageddon." The performance at the Hollywood
Bowl in Los Angeles, California, on May 6, 2023, garnered a notable sum of
£1,410,000 ($1,790,206.50)[37]
Peter Kay
British comedian Peter Kay currently holds multiple records for his 2010-2011 show
The Tour That Doesn't Tour Tour...Now On Tour on a 112 date UK & Ireland arena
tour.
Longest individual run at the Manchester Arena performing 20 nights.
First ever stand-up comedian to play 15 sold out nights at The O2, London.
The only British artist to ever play 20 consecutive nights at an arena.
Over 1.2 million tickets sold in arenas across the UK and Ireland, making it the
biggest stand-up comedy tour of all time.
See also
Comedy
List of stand-up circuits
Women in comedy
Theories of humor
Macchietta, 19th-century Italian comedy
Rakugo, Japanese one-man comedy
Manzai, Japanese double act comedy
Owarai, Japanese stand-up comedy[38]
The Clown's Prayer, a poem or prayer that comedians use for inspiration
Xiangsheng, Chinese stand-up comedy
References
Zoglin, Richard. "Stand-up comedy". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia
Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
Tafoya, Eddie (2009). The Legacy of the Wisecrack: Stand-up Comedy as the Great
American Literary Form. Universal-Publishers. pp. 85–148. ISBN 9781599424958.
Bloomquist, Jennifer. "The Minstrel Legacy: African American English and the
Historical Construction of 'Black' Identities in Entertainment." Journal of African
American Studies 19, no. 4 (2015): 410–425.
Comedy Studies, vol. 8, no. 1, 106–109[full citation needed]
Double, Oliver (9 April 2018). "The origin of the term 'stand-up comedy'". Comedy
Studies. 12 (2): 235–237. doi:10.1080/2040610X.2018.1428427. S2CID 195058528 – via
Taylor & Francis.
"What is Anecdotal Comedy?". 24 April 2023.
Quirk, Sophie (2015). Why Stand-up Matters: How Comedians Manipulate and
Influence. New York: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. p. 154. ISBN 978-1-4725-7893-8.
Observational comedy works by mocking 'normal' behaviours but, even as it does so,
it often affirms and promotes a fixed idea of what 'normal' is.
Cambridge University Press. "SATIRE | definition in the Cambridge English
Dictionary". Cambridge English Dictionary. Retrieved February 6, 2024.
"Different Styles of Stand-up Comedy". 18 July 2022.
Seizer, Susan (2011). "On the Uses of Obscenity in Live Stand-Up Comedy".
Anthropological Quarterly. 84 (1). The George Washington University Institute for
Ethnographic Research: 215–216. doi:10.1353/anq.2011.0001. JSTOR 41237487. S2CID
144137009. On this circuit, shows generally consist of three to four comics:
Headliner, Feature act, Opener and/or Emcee (i.e., Master of Ceremonies). The
Headliner does roughly an hour of original material. The Feature act does 25-30
minutes. The Opener has a ten minute slot, and the Emcee squeezes in a joke or two
between acts (if the Opener is not also acting as the Emcee)...
Oswalt, Patton (14 June 2014). "A Closed Letter to Myself About Thievery, Heckling
and Rape Jokes". Patton Oswalt. Archived from the original on 2019-03-04. Retrieved
3 February 2019. Open mikes are where, as a comedian [like Daniel Tosh and his
controversy], you're supposed to be allowed to fuck up.
Roth, Brian (2013-05-22). "The "Bringer" Show: What to Expect When Building Your
Comedy Career". New York City Comedy. Retrieved 2024-02-09.
Frances-White, Deborah; Shandur, Marsha (2016). Off the Mic: The World's Best
Stand-up Comedians Get Serious About Comedy. Jim Jefferies. New York: Bloomsbury
Publishing. p. 176. ISBN 978-1-4725-2638-0. Go to festivals, because that's where
you get noticed by the media ... [and] gauge [yourself against] everybody else.
"Top 25 Stand-Up Specials of All-Time". IMDb. 12 August 2018. Retrieved 2 November
2021.
Eddie Izzard (2011). The Art of Stand-Up (TV). United Kingdom: BBC: One. Eddie
Izzard states, 'it should be—establish, reaffirm, and then you kill it on the
third... you can keep reaffirming before you twist.
Helitzer, Mel; Shatz, Mark (2005). Comedy Writing secrets: the best-selling book
on how to think funny, write funny, act funny, and get paid for it (2nd ed.).
Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer's Digest Books. p. 63. ISBN 978-1-58297-357-9.
Leighton, H. Vernon (2020). "A Theory of Humor (Abridged) and the Comic Mechanisms
of John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces". In Marsh, Leslie (ed.). Theology
and Geometry: Essays on John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces (Politics,
Literature, & Film). United Kingdom: Lexington Books (published 29 January 2020).
pp. 2–4. ISBN 978-1-4985-8547-7. Retrieved 27 March 2020. it is useful to examine
the famous paraprosdokian, 'I've had a wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.'
"Medieval Jesters – And their Parallels in Modern America". History is Now. 13
January 2019. Retrieved 2022-02-18.
Billington, Sandra. "A Social History of the Fool," The Harvester Press, 1984.
ISBN 0-7108-0610-8
Quirk, Sophie (2018). The Politics of British Stand-Up Comedy: The New
Alternative. Palgrave Studies in Comedy. London, UK: palgrave macmillan. pp. 23,
29. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-01105-5. ISBN 978-3-030-01104-8. LCCN 2018956867. the
comedy of the left 'punches up' at the established authorities of its time, be they
governmental, cultural, or artistic. ... a joke is a joke, not a political act, and
the ability to say what you like in the context of joking is held sacred.
Cohen, Sascha (2014). "A Brief History of Punch-Down Comedy". Mask. Maskmag.
Retrieved 6 February 2019. George Carlin echoed this sentiment, observing that
'comedy has traditionally picked on people in power.' … '[Chappelle and Gervais]
have done daring and subversive work on other topics, like race and religion,
respectively, but punching down at an essentially powerless minority group is pure
hack.'
Schwartz, Ben (2016). "Knock Yourselves Out: "Punching up" in American comedy".
The Baffler. 31 (31): 134–136. JSTOR 43958952. Retrieved 2023-08-23.
Voss, Erik (4 November 2010). "Is There Ever a Justification for Joke Stealing?".
Vulture: Devouring Culture. New York Media LLC. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
Borns, Betsy (1987). Comic Lives: Inside the World of American Stand-up comedy.
Abby Stein. Simon & Schuster. p. 242. ISBN 0-671-62620-5. [T]here are also cases of
simple coincidence and, often in the case of observational material, parallel
thinking.
Bailey, Jonathan (27 September 2021). "When Joke Theft Becomes Serious".
Plagiarism today. Retrieved 4 November 2021.
Fabiola Scarpetta; Anna Spagnolli (2009). "The Interactional Context of Humor in
Stand-up Comedy". Research on Language and Social Interaction. 42 (3): 210–230.
doi:10.1080/08351810903089159. S2CID 143552897.[page range too broad]
"Fear public speaking more than death? Fear not – the audience only sees 20% of
your nerves". February 2022.
Burgess, Kaya. "Speaking in public is worse than death for most".
Lockyear, Sharon; Myers, Lynn (November 2011). "It's About Expecting the
Unexpected - Live Stand-up Comedy from the Audiences Perspective" (PDF).
Participations. 8 (2): 165–188 – via on-line Database.
Wilde, Larry (2000) [1968]. "Shelley Berman". Great Comedians Talk About Comedy.
Shelley Berman. Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Executive Books. p. 86. ISBN 0-937539-
51-1. Just because it is small, they call it a chi-chi room, or because they bring
certain oddball forms of entertainment
Pandya, Hershal (10 January 2018). "The Rise of "Clapter" Comedy". Vulture.
Retrieved 10 May 2022.
Bello, Benamin (6 September 2021). "Whose job is it to deal with aggressive comedy
punters?". Chortle. Retrieved 10 May 2022.
Rosenfield, Stephen (2018). Mastering Stand-Up: The Complete Guide to Becoming a
Successful Comedian. Chicago, Illinois: Chicago Review Press. p. 195. ISBN 978-1-
61373-692-0. If you have an all 'A' [material] 5-minute set, you'll get paid
nothing.
King, Susan (22 December 2006). "Diller can still pack a punch line". Los Angeles
Times. Retrieved 28 March 2020. [Phyllis Diller] still holds the Guinness Book of
World Records for doling out 12 punch lines a minute.
"Most jokes told in an hour". Guinness World Records. Archived from the original
on 27 July 2015.
"Biggest first day sale of any British comedy tour ever". Chortle. 17 October
2010. Retrieved 4 November 2021.
Pilastro, Eleonora (4 September 2023). "Ricky Gervais's Armageddon breaks stand-up
comedy record". Guinness World Records. Archived from the original on 18 January
2024. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
Spacey, John (5 September 2015). "4 Types of Japanese comedy". Japan Talk.
Retrieved 31 October 2021.
vte
Comedy
Categories: Stand-up comedyComedy genresComedy theatreHumourLive stand-up comedy
showsShow business termsStage terminologyNarrative techniquesNarratologyComedy
This page was last edited on 1 August 2024, at 21:39 (UTC).
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0;
additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and
Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation,
Inc., a non-profit organization.