Carmen Ali aka April Fiasco

I feel like Austin Powers in The Spy Who Shagged Me. It just disappeared. Perhaps a fellow evil comedian stole it. Or perhaps I just got bored.

The problem with comedy is repetition. You have to tell a joke a certain amount of times to get good at telling it, and by the time you’ve nailed it, sometimes you don’t even want to tell the joke anymore.

I’ve been told a few times that I sound too rehearsed on stage, like an actor who knows their lines too well. This means gigging has become a bit monotonous and mundane. I thought about giving up comedy, or at least maybe taking a break and not booking anymore new gigs while I figure about what I’m doing, which I may still do, but here are some other things I intend to try to get my mojo back.

1 Watch more comedy (not just stand up)

It’s easy to feel like you are going nowhere and forget what’s enjoyable about doing comedy and making people laugh, and how it is possible to become successful at it, it just takes time, hard work and not giving up. I didn’t watch enough shows when I was Edinburgh Festival so am going to try and watch more online and go and see shows every now and then when I am not performing. Not just stand up though; sketches, comedy movies, interviews.

2 Watch different art forms too

A comedian at Edinburgh Festival said he deliberately wasn’t watching any comedy shows, he was going to see art like dance and circus skills for inspiration. Sometimes you are surrounded by so much comedy that you need to look at creativity from other places to open up your mind.

3 Try new jokes more often

Trying new jokes is hard. Especially when you know you have jokes that work most of the time. But what is the point of doing it if it’s not hard and there isn’t the risk of failure? I need to try more new jokes more often, maybe at least one at every gig that isn’t an important one.

4 Write more new jokes

How am I going to try new jokes all the time if I don’t write any new jokes? In terms of joke writing, my technique is generally more ‘wait until something comes to me’ rather than sit down and write, but I think even just writing for 10 – 15 minutes a day will help me come up with new ideas. Some of them might be genius. You never know!

4 Leave jokes I’m really bored of for a while

Bored of my jokes? Well I’ll stop telling them then. Particularly the ones that don’t get as many laughs as they used to, because when I tell them, I sound like I’m watching paint dry in a hospice. Well they can just die, for a while. Then maybe I’ll resuscitate them when I get bored of all the new ones.

5 Bring back jokes I haven’t done for a while

Because I’m not bored of them anymore, they will be new and awesome like the first time I told them. At least for the next 5 gigs anyway.

6 MC more

I wrote a post about MCing recently and how much I enjoy it, because of how conversational it is, so I am trying to do more of this. I’ve got one MC gig booked for March next year but am definitely going to make more of an effort to apply for them.

7 Improv more

Similar to MCing, I am going to improv more during my stand up – which can either be brilliant or disastrous, but I find when it really works, it is worth it. My aim is to be able to shift seamlessly between chatting and material, and eventually I will sound more natural on stage.

I will let you know how it all goes…