Improv Comedy? Yes. And... Great for Stand-Up

Dec 3 / Alfie Noakes

We all know how tribal people can be. Even with similar themes and elements, folk do like to pick sides.

DC or Marvel? Coke or Pepsi? Coke or Meth?

Personally, I like both Batman and Iron Man.

Personally, I like Coke over Pepsi, but if the former isn’t available, Pepsi it is.

Personally, aaah… Just Say No?

There are limited schools of comedy performance. I’m a Stand-Up guy (in oh-so-many-ways) but there is of course, the oft-maligned by Stand-Ups, school of Improvised Comedy.

I admire them both. I’ve always rolled my eyes when I hear dedicated performers from one genre mocking the other.

Silly. They share much more in common than separates them.

Whether in Improv or Stand-Up, every performer has a creative drive. Each a desire to be under-the-spotlight. All carry a wish to thrill at making an audience laugh.

I contend that experience in one arena lends to success in the other.

Improvisers can enhance their Game and develop neural pathways in their comedy brain. They can stretch themselves in ways more typical of a Stand-Up comedian.

Indeed, I believe that most Improvisers should dabble in a little Stand-Up. This would make for a harder hit of the comedy Ju-Ju. Being bigger laughs exclusively for them as an individual.

Any Stand-Up can enhance their chances of becoming a superior Stand-Up by applying some classic Improv attitudes and approaches.

This is perhaps well illustrated by an understanding of just how many funny people, such as Paul Merton, Michael Che, Marcus Brigstocke and Adam Sandler and many more, have a background in Improv.

Stand-Ups are lone-wolf performers. They write their material in advance. Then perform it in a fashion that aims to give the impression they’re just making it up as they go along.

Improv Players are part of a Team and actually do make it up as they go along. Yet they aim to be so smooth that it appears their funnies were indeed prepared in advance.

I’m sure you’re familiar with Improv Comedy from shows like Whose Line Is It Anyway?

The solitary Stand-Up takes the wholesale glory of crushing, or the sting of stage death, on their own shoulders. They build a resiliency that benefits them on stage and far beyond. Every single aspect of their performance – writing and delivery – is their cross to bear or their triumph to rejoice.

For Stand-Ups, their extremes are more, erm, extreme.

Improv comedy players come in Teams. It varies, but four or five would be normal. It’s a Team sport, or rather, Game. Commonly, a concept involving a person/place/situation is invoked. The Players then take turns to build up the world, comment-by-comment, seeking laughs along the way.

Any sense of stinging personal failure from a laughter-light performance is diluted across the Team Players. On the other hand, any sense of glorious success… also diluted.

It’s worth noting the gentler standard. Improv Comedy audiences tend to be more supportive and are often audibly appreciative.

Improv Players are by the very nature of ‘Playing’ with one another, co-operative. They try and set one another up for success. In many ways they have much in common with actors or Team sports players.

Another clear distinction between Improv Players and Stand-Ups is a major luxury the latter enjoys. If a Stand-Up creates a great joke that gets a big laugh, they can dine out on that success, over and over. A gift that keeps on giving.

Unfortunately for the Improv people, they may generate an amazing laugh, to be enjoyed only one time. Their triumph lives and dies in just seconds.

The sad truth is that for a talented Improviser, their ‘Greatest Hits’ are also their ‘One Hit Wonders.’ What a shame.

The happy truth is that relatively experienced Improv Players often have a back catalogue of solid premises and laugh-getters that are simply going unused.

If the Player steps up as a Stand-Up, they can draw on their ‘One Hit Wonders’ and turn them into legitimate ‘Greatest Hits’. Everyone’s a winner, act and audience alike.

Ultimately, every comedy creator has three key processes. Creation, editing and performing.

That’s coming up with the idea, the first draft… then revisiting it to edit, hone, rehearse and bolster. Perform it.

Improv Players are forever conjuring with a first draft. Simultaneously, the final draft. Everything must be produced by committee and performed live.

These good people complete the Creation/Editing/Performance process, between themselves, in a matter of minutes.

A committee of Improv Comedy Geniuses may render incredible results. There’s just no getting away from the fact that the absence of rehearsal and rewriting must have limiting effects on the potential final output.

I understand this is the very nature of Improvised Comedy, the clue is in the name, after all.

However, I’d suggest a Player can indeed enjoy the best of both worlds, if they were only to straddle the line and get into Stand-Up too.

It’s worth recognizing that the Improv Players don’t sweat and fret in the same way that Stand-Ups must. After all, most of the creative work from Stand-Ups, rehearsing and redrafting, is spent in solitude and far from any audience.

Stand-Ups have the advantage of zoning in on what works best. They can eliminate weaknesses. They have chance to push up the standards and gain ever increasing rewards - truer, bigger, laughs.

It’s always impressive when any person on the comedy stage comes up with a funny, in-the-moment, comment.

Speed, wit and imagination are the prime drivers of Improv. When it works, it’s amazing.

For Stand-Ups, the demonstration of such skill can make all the difference between being perceived as ‘great’ rather than merely ‘good’.

Legitimate opportunities to be fast-witted and off-the-cuff are the exception rather than the rule in Stand-Up. Their set is essentially a script. They may occasionally be interrupted by a Heckler. Or find a need to address some unexpected incident during the show. Perhaps there’s a desire to get into some Crowd Work.

In the absence of genuine fast wit, the next best thing a Stand-Up can do is to give the appearance of being off-the-cuff funny.

The wise Stand-Up will have prepared responses, veiled as spontaneous funny, for broadly predictable ‘interruptions’.

Getting a big laugh from, for example, a technical issue with the lighting, can be an instant status-booster.

Adopting elements of the spontaneous, free-flowing approach of the Improvisers can turbocharge Stand-Ups who want to riff.

Whichever school of comedy a performer is planted in, there’s no getting away from a foundational truth. They must identify a premise and build it out. All while looking for the laughs.

I have MCed literally thousands of open mic Stand-Up comedians. I’ve coached hundreds more. I have repeatedly observed one of the absolute most common rookie errors. Which is for a brand-new act to mistake a premise for a joke.

‘Have you ever noticed how many bald hairdressers there are?’

Erm, and that’s it. They think they’ve told a joke.

This major early day’s error is immediately fixed with a little application of foundational Improv. Yes. And…

The primary rule of Improv is to ‘accept the offer’ from a fellow team member and run with it, build it out… said or unsaid, the response essentially begins with the words ‘Yes. And…’

Kicking off an Improv Game .

Player 1 ‘Wow, it’s so amazing here on the moon.’

Player 2 ‘(Yes And) I love the moon. Though, I’m amazed there’s a McDonalds here.’

Player 3 ‘(Yes And) I know, right? I thought Burger King had the exclusive rights in this territory.’

Games keeps building, player-by-player, comment-by-comment.

Agreement. Advancing. Building.

If another player ‘rejects the offer’ then it pretty much kills the Game, providing no opportunity to build.

Player 1 ‘Wow, it’s so amazing here on the moon.’

Player 2 ‘This isn’t the moon. This is Doncaster train station.’

End scene. (Likely the end of that player being a part of this Team ever again.)

The fact is, Stand-Ups are doing a version of the same thing. Observing or creating a premise and then building on it. Typically, in their own head or in their private joke book.

Premise - ‘What if they could make alcoholic milk?’

By then asking themselves ‘Yes. And…’ the likelihood is the trickle of emanating ideas may start resembling a flow.

(Yes. And…) What else is that like?

(Yes. And…) What’s the logical extension?

(Yes. And…) What would be an opposite?

(Yes. And…) Who would be an inappropriate, and thus hilarious, celebrity brand sponsor?

Etc.

Such framing can generate smoother advancement of ideas. Improv structure can be powerfully employed by creative Stand-Ups.

Most Stand-Ups understand the concept of creating comedy from announcing an observation. Then providing a specific example and finally landing the punchline in the form of a skewed ‘after-thought’.

Improv Players often do the same. It just that it takes three people to do it.

The fact is, one Player performing Stand-Up, can do all of it themselves. And more. They have full control of the developing material.

Stand-Ups primarily conjure with precise wording.

Whereas, Improvisers are often more animated, acting out and gleefully throwing themselves into fictious and imagined worlds.

IMHO there’s barely a great comedian in the world who doesn’t use ‘act-outs’ as a major element in their killer sets.

In the open mic arena, the performative skills of the Improviser would boost almost any set. Naturally, there’s a balance to be drawn, though energizing a spoken word performance with some physicality is very often pure bonus.

There are so many Games that Improvisers play with one another, that taken merely as concepts, would help any Stand-Up to focus their earliest ideas.

I’ll start wrapping up with but a single example of an Improv Game.

Naturally, there are a ton more to be enjoyed.

Perhaps musing on ‘Bad Idea Brainstorm’ can help get your funny flowing ever more.

Bad Idea Brainstorm – Quite simply, intentionally set out to come up with ‘bad’ ideas. Take something and try and imagine ways to make it terrible in the first instance. Or just worse than it currently is.

It won’t be long before you stumble into some ‘good’ ideas. Yet the creator will find themselves far beyond the banal first thoughts and unimaginative concepts of lesser people!

Example Premise – How could I make the buying experience from Amazon.Com worse?

Idea – When they drop off your parcel, have every delivery person curse at the recipient. While smiling.

Yes. And… Have every delivery person refuse to hand over any package until they get a cuddle.

Yes. And… Every time you make a purchase on Amazon, your Ex gets a notification about it.

Yes. And… Free baggie of Coke/Meth/Pepsi* with every kitchen utensil purchased.

*Tribal People, delete as your personal preferences dictate

Yes. And… Yes. And… Yes. And…

ONLINE COURSES

Online classes for comedians at every level of experience

In-person workshops

Learn and practise with the most talented comedians

What's coming up

Free open mic comedy, with top quality headline comedians

About us

Grab our FREE e-book

To get your .pdf copy of Eight Ways to Turbocharge Your Stand-Up Comedy--and get regular updates and offers from the We Are Funny Project--leave your email address below, and we will send you a link to your e-book.

Success! Now check you email to download the e-book.

Navigation

Small print

Featured resources

Connect with us

Write your awesome label here.

I would like to receive news, tips and tricks, and other promotional material