Comedy
“ When I opened my window… a pigeon flew right into my face!!” Was that funny? Some might giggle at the surprise while some might just shrugged it off as absurd .Therefore what is funny? Well comedy is not a science but rather an art. It’s pretty subjective as what one person finds funny another might cringe at it.
“One thing worth noting is that when analysing comedy and what is funny, it is almost like it is only visible out of the corner of your eye. As soon as you try and look directly at it and analyse it too much... all of the funniness disappears…”
Christian Cook
Reading the quote, I realised that is quite similar to music. While listening to a beautiful song, if we start to count every beat , wondering about the number of instruments used or even judging the precision of the singer’s vocals; the magic in the song is gone as we might as well be a bitter judge on the ‘American Idol’ show.
The answer to why something is funny is not at all simple to be honest...I believed that something is funny because it captures a moment. It contains an ingredient of simple truth. It is something that we have always known for ages and yet here we are hearing it out loud for the first time.
And thus we should view comedy as a way of life, a journey of an involuntarily happiness and lightness comedies take us through.
We poke our funny bones when we watch skits that…
1. …are expected- the slipping because of a banana skin
2….are unexpected- Mary opened her window and said : “ it’s going to be a wonderful day .’’As soon as she finished her sentence, a great storm rolled in .
3….are familiar- Pressing the flusher of the toilet OVER and OVER again to flush down a mountain of wiped tissues.( we laugh as we recognise our own silly actions at times)
4….are unfamiliar-It was John’s turn to jump over the pole in a high jump event. John jumped so high that he disappeared out of sight up into the sky.
MY TASTE
I been inspired by many great genres of comedy such as character play, satire, musical, surrealism and farce as they all have their own uniqueness and magic in them.
My personal favourites are character play( Mr. Bean) and surrealism( Monty Python) both from Britain.
Britain's Comedy act : MONTY PYTHON
HOW TO CALM YOUR DAMN NERVES AND RELAX SKIT
Synopsis
( CHARACTER PLAY)
Here I played a role of a nerve wrecking person. I was a person whom freaks out on the smallest things. I also get worked up very easily as I struggled to be professional at most of the time . For instance missing the bus, tripping over a cat, when my pencil is blunt, when my pencil is lost, when I see someone with the same pencil that I have… the insignificant list goes on and on.
However, I introduced a book I described as my life saving guide flamboyantly to the audience. The book entitled “HOW TO CALM YOUR DAMN NERVES and RELAX”. I announced to the audience that I would be trying 3 tips from the book and see whether my problems are solved.
(THEATER AND MUSIC COMEDY)
The first tip was to immerse oneself with soaring music.This was where I literary danced flamboyantly to the song “I believe I can fly” by R Kelly. I fell and moved on to the next tip which was listening to classical music while drinking tea. Here I felt more chilling cold then being calm of the shrill and loud opera voice of the song Bizet Carmen. I had almost spat out tea as i almost had a heart attack by the finale note the opera singer sang.The final tip was to do ‘Tai Chi’ . Bad energy out , good energy in as I performed an over the top practice of Tai Chi to the song of “ Wong Fei Hong”.
(SLAPSTICK)
I finally told the audience that the book did helped. I was able to remain calm in all situation. However, I broke all loosed as I picked up the broom and frantically trying to hit a cockroach on the ground. My actions were to the flow and beat of the song “The Eye Of The Tiger” by the survivor.THE MUSICAL SLAPSTICK CHARCTER PLAY
Basically my comedy style is that of the above title as a summary. I like to play characters just like “Mr.Bean” as we get a chance to be in someone else’s shoes.I have also incorporated a style known as observational comedy. I show that many people today do have some management issues such as anger, phobia and anxiety. Sometimes we are prompted to get some self help books like in this skit “How to calm your damn nerves and relax”. I try to tell that sometimes some self help books have silly remedies written by authors and we as consumers follow thei crazy preaching. Sometimes it works ,sometimes it don’t. I have also took a liking on slapstick, the body language used in a comedy act thus I made my body movement and facial expression my humours for most of the part of my act.I made sure the fully use the whole stage as I want my comedy act to flow fluidly and not awkwardly standing on the same spot throughout my comedy act. I have also portrayed my signature style as my acts always incorporates music . I believe music will always gives the whole act a flow in which awkward transitions ceased to exists. It also further takes the comedy act to a whole new level.However, the selection of music must have connections with the theme of the act or else the music won’t have the magical enhancement effect on the act. For instance, in my act, I purposely use the “the eye of the tiger” song when I swung the broom.Every loud horns blown from the song emphasised on the intensity of my anger during the scene where I crazily swung the broom everywhere.
My Encore Comedy Act
Well it is just like
telling someone a joke twice. The person probably knows what was the surprise
and catch. However if parts of the joke was seriously a timeless one, even if
that person is been told the joke over and over again, the person will laugh at
the classic part of it.
After the challenge I finally found a new goal in the future when I do a comedy act.
Thus my goal was to create A TIMELESS COMEDY
ACT so even if I had to do an encore, I will still garner some genuine laughter
from the audience.
Awesome! Watching this again had in stitches! :) You have a raw talent for performance! :)
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