Why I’ve just done a… crash comedy course
During another tough year, I decided to lean into humor as a form of resilience and to upskill. Will it lead to anything?
“People can jump off a building but not show up. You have made a choice to be here,” Jay Sodagar tells me and five others sitting in front of him in a west London pub on a Saturday at lunchtime.
I don’t know if I’d voluntarily plunge off a skyscraper. But on the subject of things going over a building, work has just about fallen off a cliff for a lot of journalists and media professionals in the past year.
That’s why I’ve come to the Laughing Horse Comedy school set up by Sodagar, who’s been performing in Britain since 1998 and at one stage played 300 gigs a year. He’s now a regular at major comedy clubs across the country including the Comedy Store. Sodagar also runs beginner’s comedy courses in UK cities in person and online. I’ve now decided to try to use wit to become more resilient and "upskill”, to use a word that some of us hate but has now become necessary although it feels like I’m constantly upskilling. Or to put it a bit more plainly, since things have been so sh*t lately, I want to do something different to pick myself up.
The crash course that I’ve signed up for includes four hours on the Saturday and Sunday each, learning the basics which will culminate in a five-minute standup routine or a “graduation show” open to the public on the Sunday night. The good news is that although the performance will be in Hammersmith, it’s only at the Hop Poles, the same pub where we’re doing the course, as opposed to the Lyric Theatre or the Apollo down the road, where Trevor Noah and my own Tim Minchin from Australia (who I’ve interviewed twice, including once in Edinburgh in 2006, the year that he won the Perrier Newcomer Award - not that I think he’d remember) have played. (Check out the photo below as proof. And speaking of comedy, it appears I tried to out eyeliner someone. My makeup is super scary!)
The bad news is that it’s still a daunting prospect. But trying to learn this new skill is something I’ve been thinking about for a while, especially as the job search has dragged on. And who knows, although I already have one testimonial from a past client saying that I’m very funny (I wasn’t trying) maybe it will make me even more appealing. Surely we could all do with a bit more comedy in the workplace?
As an Australian, self-deprecation comes naturally to me. In fact I think we use it as a form of empathy. And if you can’t laugh at yourself at the end of the day, when you’re alone but also in company then what has become of you? If you’ve lost your sense of humor then haven’t you lost everything? But not every one views this as a coping strategy when times are tough, especially in the home of the stiff-upper lip, I’ve discovered over the years living on and off in the UK.
About a couple of months ago I was also asked during a job interview “how do you ensure the resilience of yourself and others?” It was a question that I hadn’t in my wildest dreams prepared for, but it was a job involving working on a trans rights campaign. That’s a topic which has unfortunately become toxic and will only get even worse. So I can see why the hiring managers asked it now. But that question left me absolutely stumped. Because I think over the years of living in places like Uganda which haven’t been particularly easy but where things have always just worked out, I’ve taken it for granted in a way that all will be fine, or I’ve always assumed that I am resilient and will get by. I’ve also been through a few social media pile ons for work for example and survived. Maybe I’m tougher than I think.
I also started thinking about doing a comedy course several months ago because I thought it might help my writing. A friend in Canada had started improv sessions and was raving about them. During a session of a short writing course earlier this year another attendee told me that I should “lean into humor”. She said: “I don’t know where you are in your career”. (I was only about job application 105 in or on my 27th follow up pitch to an editor, actually. Responses to those, even editors I’ve done a lot of work for in the past, have also vanished over the past year). “But maybe you should just lean into it,” she continued. I’d been inspired by other women, particularly in their 40s and 50s who I’d seen had carved out stand up careers, in addition. So after coming back to Britain a few months ago I decided that I was going to do a comedy course.
After looking for a job in the nightmare markets of 2024 and now 2025, there’s also plenty of material to work with. There’s the time I was told “you’re a little bit too good” for the work, so I didn’t deserve it and didn’t get it. This was followed by “we couldn’t unearth any one” for the role. (No, it wasn’t joining an expedition to look for the tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh, it was a basic marketing position, not even full time). Then there was the occasion that I got a generic email rejection for a role which I hadn’t even applied for. What about when I posted on LinkedIn, which has become a kind of Tinder for the Unemployed, that I needed work - and strangers around the world sent me their CVs? Brilliant, because I hadn’t thought about going to work in Guatemala. But now I knew what resume font size and format worked for them in the country. There’s the experience of receiving a rejection from a hiring manager who I was pretty sure was a dog sitter, and the 52 take home assignments you have to do just to get shortlisted for any gig these days, too. This may all be relatable experiences, but does that make them funny? Then again, I still remember a standup gig in Covent Garden that I went to about a decade ago that revolved around the Caffe Nero loyalty card.
Sitting next to me is a fellow comedy student who plans to write his standup routine around an experience of something else that might not sound that funny: spending five years watching his child battle cancer.
Leaning into work rejection using comedy and using your material for this is of course an approach that might not work for everyone and some might not find it funny. Believe me a lot of the time I’m not laughing about this. I’ve seen a few brave people on social media describe the past year looking for work as being one full of grief and loss, and this also resonates. I have spent time crying besides laughing. I think in a way all of us who are in this boat are mourning for the sense of stability and socialisation that work once brought and which we enjoyed. And of course being able to spend time and money on a comedy course while you’re looking for work instead of having to beg on the streets involves some privilege. But then I started to think, should I try and turn all of this rejection into something positive?
Sitting next to me in this Hammersmith pub is a fellow comedy student who plans to write his standup routine around an experience of something else that might not sound that funny: spending five years watching his child battle cancer. His son is okay now fortunately. But his father also wanted to use humor to cope with the emotional rollercoaster that he’s been on. He wanted, he explains to all of us as we go around the room introducing ourselves, to expose himself to the thing that he struggled with, which is performing in front of people. After spending so much time on an oncology pediatric ward, surely he’s been given license for this and the least that he’s earned is the right to do this? Sitting next to him, he tells me privately that he’s come from outside London for the course, is staying in a hotel and that his wife doesn’t know he’s here. “It’s like a fetish,” he jokes.
Someone else who has showed up is a bartender from Kettering in Northamptonshire. He lives on a narrow boat. “Comedy is like public speaking on steroids,” he tells the group. “I just wanted to do everything more creatively”. The others include a gay Canadian now living in London and a Tibetan woman who now calls Tasmania home. She’s already performed about 40 stand up gigs around the world and has a very dark sense of humor. Sodagar once taught a trained hostage negotiator and has had people on his courses who have been recovering from cancer and people have found their jokes funny, he tells us. “You can find humor in anything.”
But what you may not always be able to find are good comedy clubs. The US and UK, especially London where there are between 100-150 gigs a week, are particularly opportune places to explore a career in the art. “You will always find somewhere,” Sodagar says. It’s competitive out there though. Even Saturday Night Live (SNL) is now coming to British shores.
“Can I just run to the loo?” one student asks as our tutor tells us that he’s going to “put on the clock” and get us to each talk about ourselves for two minutes. “I hope no one’s going for a poo,” Sodagar quips, adding that people won’t come back. When we’re all seated again he explains to us that a lot of people when trying to perform comedy click into a natural “CV mode” since we’ve been conditioned to be so placid most of the time. Yet all of our comedy material comes from the subconscious part of our brain. “Biohack it and you're then able to start to write material forever and forever,” he says.
I’m okay with talking about myself for two minutes, I think. (Well, I am on Substack…) For the next task though, a “rant and rave”, which we’re informed is one of comics’ most popular writing exercises, we have to come up with five subjects that we have a strong attitude about. I manage to come up with more than the required amount although there’s some overlap - manners, snooping (especially on LinkedIn), LGBTQ+ rights, religion in politics, exploitation of freelancers, LinkedIn, the far left and GB News. I’m more ranty than rave-y, at least on this occasion. And I’m fascinated with the topics that the others come up with - they include a rave about snakes in the UK (when do you ever seen one?!) and youth crime.
“You will never get writers’ block - all of the information you need is already there.”
I rant for two minutes about…small towns, a subject chosen by my fellow pupils. The feedback from my tutor though is that I’m too stilted and monotone. Comedy is a lot more about the performance than I thought and not just about the writing. “The trick to this exercise is the attitude,” says Sodagar. “Push the attitude right out of your comfort zone.” I start to feel like you not only need to be funny to be a comedian, you need to be an actor too. Our homework is to practice our rant and raves and record them.
We talk about the comedians that we like. The names that come up include Ricky Gervais and Ben Aaron. We discuss acts that we’ve seen that we didn’t enjoy. The Canadian mentions a comedian who pretended to be a spider which wasn’t very funny. Sodagar tells us that “comedy is subjective but all (comedians) follow a general rule”. This is that there must be audience connection, a strong performance, and good material. We then talk about “disconnection points”.
The absolute worst way to learn the art of comedy is via videos or even by going to an Apollo show, because the connection is bought with the ticket, Sodagar points out. The best method is a night out at a comedy club. When you go, he says, you’ll often see comedians at the back reading the room to get insight into things like whether people like swearing or not. “This is the level of detail (required),” says Sodagar. “We are not infallible. We can misread the room. All audiences are not equal!” He presents us with typical gig scenarios and we must tell him how we’d handle the crowd, then he gives us his answer. Being a comic is actually hard work, it appears. Just like people have suggested to me in the past that being a journalist is easy because writing is easy, when I’ve rolled my eyes, I can see now that comics must also be told that being a comedian is easy because being funny is easy and roll their eyes, too.
Luckily though we’re more ahead than we thought. “You will never get writers’ block - all of the information you need is already there,” Sodagar assures us on the Sunday when we discuss audience connection again. But establishing rapport isn’t about appeasing them. “You’re not a jukebox. It’s about taking them to where you need them to be.” There’s two types of heckling we learn - positive, which is putting the comedian down, and negative, which is more common. It’s room and audience specific. We’re taught the editing process, mainly what material we need to omit, and then the four step editing process and how to write out our scripts. There are only two structures involved in writing comedy, Sodagar explains - a set up and a punchline - despite some "weird terminology” emerging, he says. A punchline is anything that gets a laugh. He makes us write this down and underline it. We’re taught a special formula to calculate how many punchlines we have in our five-minute material.
With hours to go before our first live comedy show, we rehearse our scripts in front of each other on Sunday afternoon. Everyone is funny. The Canadian talks about “throwing shade, a thing of beauty and elegance”, both literally and metaphorically. The Tibetan-Aussie includes some very naughty lines about Asian women having a “tight…pussy” and not letting men come inside…her house. The attitude, as Sodagar describes, is “sexual flirty” or “sultry flirty”. The bartender talks about his balls and some of his customers (separately). Sodagar, who is workshopping them with us, jokes “I’m talking about someone’s pussy and someone’s balls.” The routine from the guy whose son had cancer about having a bald head himself and having nurses tell him that he’s “brave” is hilarious. There’s also a skit about being asked if you’re “going home for Easter” by work colleagues and what being back in one’s hometown entails that I can certainly relate to.
“Have you invited any one?” the guy with the bald head asks me. I joke that I’ve never been so happy that I can leave the country tomorrow if I want.
My own act also has lines about small towns and about growing up there and some of the things that we learnt at school, my family history, and of course the current job market for journalists and…LinkedIn. After a rehearsal I’m still told by Sodagar that I need a ramp up the attitude. When the course officially finishes, we all go off in private to work on our scripts. Mine is on my laptop but I haven’t been able to print it out, so I go to the Weatherspoon’s in Hammersmith’s main square to write it out by hand while I have fish and chips and an Aperol Spritz (or three), to calm my nerves and celebrate that I’ve had the energy and guts to get out of bed on a weekend to do a crash comedy course and perform a standup routine in front of strangers in a year when things have been tough. (Well here’s hoping).
Some have also spent the weekend doing the London Marathon on a rare day of sunshine in the city which could also bring a silver lining: we may not actually sell any tickets for our debut comedy performance. On the other hand, would I be better than pursuing running than comedy? I feel a bit sad that I used to be such a keen runner but I’ve really let it slip in the past year, because looking for work has honestly drained my energy. I wonder if I can also lean back into it, as well as comedy, to keep going. “Have you invited any one?” the guy with the bald head asks me. I joke that I’ve never been so happy that I don’t know that many people in London these days and that I can leave the country tomorrow if I want. “Do you think you’ll still be doing this next month?” he continues. I tell him that next on the cards for me is a screenwriting course (this is true) which might indicate what high hopes I have for my comedy career.
In the end, two people actually turn up, friends of the guy who talked about snakes and whose standup routine is about going home. I’m thankful that they’ve showed up but also think why couldn’t they be into running. Luckily Sodagar is letting us take our scripts up on stage with us. No one dies on their feet, in fact every one gets laughs and cheers, including me. I’m nervous and need to use my script especially towards the end. “You went for eight minutes!” the guy whose son had cancer tells me when I go to sit back down. The Canadian tells me that my attitude was a lot better than during my rehearsal.
Now that I’m officially a comedy graduate, will I be the next Hannah Gadsby? Most likely not. It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve done the course and I’m yet to write any new material, or to line up an open mic night. But then I was walking around east London the other day and I came across the Backyard Comedy Club in Bethnal Green, so watch this space. After all, even daily life, as mundane as we might think it is, continues to throw up material. And even if it all comes to nothing, at least I’ll have fun trying.