Clare, London: What Happened to Her MCing After the Course

Clare had been doing stand-up for several years when she took the course. She was not a beginner looking for basics. She came because she wanted to get better at something specific.

What she found was that the course delivered on that, and then went further in a direction she had not anticipated.

She talks about it clearly and without much prompting in the video below. One thing she says about the role of the MC, and why it is so often underestimated, is worth paying particular attention to.

Clare mentions confidence, crowd connection and energy management as the areas that shifted most. But the observation she makes near the end of the video about what an MC is actually there to do cuts closer to the heart of it than most comedians realise until they have been doing it for years.

Comedy is an investment of time and energy, and understanding how that investment compounds over time is worth thinking about before you take any course.

Your Comedy Investments covers exactly that. If you are still finding your feet on the circuit, The Three Tiers of Open Mic Comedy is a useful map of where you are and where you are heading.

And for a frank look at what progression actually feels like from the inside, Comedy Progression and New Material Hell does not dress it up.

The video below is taken directly from How to Be a Brilliant Stand-Up Comedy MC and covers one of the practical performance skills Clare found most useful.

People also ask

Does the MC course help with crowd work specifically?
Yes. Crowd work is one of the core skills covered in depth throughout the course. Clare came to the course specifically to develop her crowd work and found it directly addressed what she was looking for. The course covers how to get an audience onside, how to connect with different types of crowd members and how to maintain the energy of a night across multiple acts.

Is How to Be a Brilliant Stand-Up Comedy MC useful for comedians who already have experience?
It is designed for comedians with 50 or more gigs and MCs who want to raise their game. Clare had been performing for several years before taking it and found it immediately applicable to her existing shows. The course works precisely because it does not assume you are starting from scratch.

What is the difference between being funny as a stand-up and being a good MC?
A stand-up's job is to make people laugh with a prepared set. An MC's job is to hold the whole night together. As Clare puts it, the MC is not necessarily there to be the funniest person in the room. The skill is in managing energy, connecting with the crowd and making every act's job easier. Those are learnable skills and the course covers them methodically.

How long does the MC course take to complete?
The course runs to over five hours across 16 sessions, each followed by a practical exercise. Because it is entirely self-paced and online, you can work through it on your own schedule, stopping and starting between sessions as Clare did.