Parking inspectors and comedians have one thing in common – abuse from the general public. No matter how good your jokes, no matter how many friends you have in the audience, one day you will have to deal with a heckler. Hecklers fall into two categories – they criticise your joke, or they get personal, and criticise you. But be …
FIRST THERE WAS ‘SHAUN OF THE DEAD’. Up until then zombies were only grotesque, not hilarious. But Simon Pegg and Nick Frost changed the rules proving that zombies could be slap-stick, while you slapped them over the head with a stick, or a baseball bat. You get my meaning. Now’s there’s Australian ‘Me and My Mates vs. The Zombie Apocalypse‘. Much like …
There’s many ways to write a joke. At the Hard Knock Knocks stand-up comedy school, we teach three. Our favourite joke structure is the Normal-Normal-Twist. The Normal-Normal-Twist takes the audience on a familiar journey and then suddenly zigs sideways, with a surprise. And no, we didn’t invent this. It’s been used by comedy greats for aeons, even Jerry Seinfeld. Seinfeld demonstrates …
THE SHORT ANSWER IS ‘NO’ – unless you have a twin and your dad’s name surname is Nelson. But we weren’t talking literally, were we? We were talking metaphorically – could you be the next hot stand-up comedy act out of Australia? Well, Yes. Possibly. So what do you need to make it big? Well, firstly you don’t need to be …
BUNGEE JUMPING, PARACHUTING and stand-up comedy. These are possibly the three most legally terrifyingly activities that one can do today, and yet, with the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in full swing, the city is crawling with hundreds of comic masochists. So what makes them do it? What makes someone leave a perfectly safe seat, climb onto a stage, grab a microphone …
If you are reading this then chances are you like, nay, you love stand-up comedy. You love its rawness, its randomness, combined with the closeness you feel, of having a one-on-one conversation. But this is what you don’t know about stand-up comedy: 1. It’s old! Stand-up comedy began in the 18th century! We’re in the 21st century now, which means …
There’s many reasons why you should learn stand-up comedy with the Hard Knock Knocks. So which category do you fit into? The Future Comic The most obvious reason is that you want to be a stand-up comedian. And that’s a great reason. Melbourne is comedy central in Australia, thanks mostly to the ‘Melbourne International Comedy Festival’ every March, but also …
Stand-up comedy can be terrifying. Jim Jefferies compares it to acting, stating that acting is “harder than a lot of things in life, but it’s not as hard as stand-up comedy.” If a pro like Jefferies thinks it’s tough, then you better believe it! But it doesn’t have to be all sweaty palms and tears. But building confidence in stand-up …
