TV is easier: it's all planned out for you and the audience is there to see a show and they are all pumped up but when you are in a comedy club, you have to be really funny to win them over.
The jokes are great but what really matters for a comedian is his performance, his whole attitude, and the laughs that he gets between the jokes rather than on top of the jokes.
What is there to say about ChUC other than it's a comedy show done the right way in the right space. Fantastic comics, welcoming audience. Always great.
TV is easier: it's all planned out for you, and the audience is there to see a show and they are all pumped up, but when you are in a comedy club, you have to be really funny to win them over. To me, that's more pure.
Live comedy in a club, with an audience - it's hard to recreate that experience in a digital world. With Zoom, your face is there the whole time, and you feel like you have to always be on. You feel like you always have to be paying attention, and it can be exhausting.
I'm a comedian, and I like to work on my live show, and if I'm doing television, I don't have time to work on my live show, and I can become a lame comic, and that sucks.
I did a gig at a comedy club in Bournemouth where they served a buffet while the acts were on. There was the clang of people carving turkey during the set. If you put comedy and turkey side by side, turkey always wins.
There is nothing - nothing - like writing a great joke and having that joke kill onstage.
My style can't be held within a pixel medium. Like, it needs to be performed in a living, breathing space. People need to have all their senses ready to take on my comedy, and unfortunately, TV alienates at least their sense of touch, taste, smell.
I've been doing comedy longer than I haven't been doing comedy, as I was performing for three years before I even got on 'The Tonight Show.' There's truly nothing like it; it's intense and exhilarating, even though it looks so casual.
In our show we know, if we're not getting a response, you see it in our face... we either do something to get a laugh, or the audience is in on it with us.
I find I've always been judgmental about comedy (laughs) and it's hard to turn that off, really. But what constant exposure to live comedy does is it makes you give people a second chance.
I had the humble beginnings. I was doing comedy in laundry mats in 1992, literally where I would bring a little gorilla amp and a lapel mike and just start performing.
I think doing The Improv is a little more ominous than doing a college campus because it was so different than anything I'd done.
Everyone who wants to make it in comedy goes to L.A., so a million comedians fight for time on three stages. If you get in there in New York, you're working eight times a night sometimes. Who's going to be funny, the guy who works once a week, or the guy working eight times a night?
I have to visualise my jokes, live my jokes, feel the audience because every audience is different. It's like having a different dancing partner every night.
I do an improv show on Sunday where we have a class, and then afterwards we go and do a live performance in front of an audience.
I don't watch sitcoms. I really don't. My problem with them is they take so long to film them that there's no spontaneity. I want to see that.
When you do comedy in front of an audience, they are the ones who tell you whether it's funny or not and which bits are funny and which bits need to be fixed.
With a comedy, it's so important to see it with an audience and an audience who really wants to be there and is enthusiastic, otherwise it can be quite a traumatizing experience.
You have to have energy at hour 13, at hour 14, at hour 15 - comedy cannot be tired, cannot be lazy. You have to be ready to go; you have to have energy.
I found doing that kind of comedy without an audience is just... for me, it's almost impossible. You need the audience to do their half of the work.
The only way to stay sharp is to do live shows. There is no part-time comedy.
Comedy is not easy to do - where you make someone laugh out loud in their living room.
I was doing comedy in laundry mats in 1992, literally where I would bring a little gorilla amp and a lapel mike and just start performing.
