This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
Students will arrange, perform and document a series of open microphone spots in professional comedy clubs and/or arrange and perform their own shows (in addition to running Monkeyshine in the Spring term for DR815). This module will run throughout the academic year. Normally, students will start doing open mike spots of arranging their own shows in the Autumn Term and continue with these until early in the Summer Term. The students will be assessed through a portfolio of performance recordings, evidence of the administration of the project, etc. The module will require them to show sound judgement, personal responsibility and initiative, in complex and unpredictable professional environments.
4-hour practical classes throughout the year
This module is only available to students registered on the MA Stand-Up Comedy
100% Coursework: Portfolio (60%); Recordings of Performances with contextual notes (40%)
Chow, Broderick (2008) 'Situations, Happenings, Gatherings, Laughter: Emergent British Stand-Up Comedy in Sociopolitical Context', Theatre Symposium, vol. 16, no. 1, 121-133.
Double, Oliver (1997) Stand-Up! On Being a Comedian, London: Methuen.
Lee, Stewart (2010) How I Escaped my Certain Fate: The Life and Deaths of a Stand-Up Comedian, London: Faber & Faber.
Lockyer, Sharon and Lynn Myers (2011), ‘"It's About Expecting the Unexpected": Live Stand-up Comedy from the Audiences' Perspective’, Participations, vol. 8, no.2, 165-88.
Martin, Steve (2007), Born Standing Up, London: Simon & Schuster.
Mintz, L.E. (1985) ‘Standup Comedy as Social and Cultural Mediation’, American Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 1, Spring, 71-80.
Molineux, Christopher (2016) ‘Life memory archive translation performance memory archive life: textual self-documentation in stand-up comedy’, Comedy Studies, vol. 7, no. 1, 2-12.
Quirk, Sophie (2011), ‘Containing the Audience: the “Room” in Stand-up Comedy’, Participations, vol. 8, no.2, 219-38.
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
By the end of the module, you will be able to:
- Deploy advanced skills in performing stand-up comedy
- Deploy advanced skills in writing and/or devising stand-up comedy material
- Demonstrate the development of an individual voice in your work (original approaches to stand-up comedy, in material and performance)
- Document, analyse and appraise your own work, with appropriate references to historical and theoretical context
- Engage with the professional world of stand-up comedy by performing in competitions and/or open mike spots in professional comedy clubs and/or setting up and performing your own shows
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