November 2024
This is the second post in a series of three about Manon’s experience of learning and performing stand-up comedy. Read the first.
by Manon Ceridwen James
Once I’d realised that stand-up had a form and a structure, just like a poem, an academic article or a sermon does (all of which I write), it all clicked into place for me. All I needed was a form for the thoughts and ideas that had always been there. One thing our instructor Kiri Pritchard Mclean said was that a stand-up show normally gets a laugh at least every 10 seconds. This is why writing comedy is one of the most difficult of all the genres. Keeping interest every 10 seconds is difficult enough — getting a laugh is so much harder.
The only way of checking whether something will get a laugh, is to say it in a stand-up show. I found early on that trying to explain a joke to my husband just wouldn’t work. I have had to work at drafting and redrafting, to find the funniest word, and the most effective rhythm, a bit like writing poetry. This is what surprised me. I expected to find writing stand-up more similar to writing sermons but in fact it is more similar to writing poetry. How words sound, the images they conjure, and even the beats in a sentence is what produces the laugh (or not).
A few months ago I did a lecture on humour and theology, and for the whole time I was speaking, I was worried that people were sat there thinking, “she’s talking about comedy but she’s not very funny is she?”.
But the topics I talked about weren’t funny either – satire, context, offence. As I write this, there is controversy over a rally that Donald Trump had in Madison Square Gardens, with a comedian having made a racist joke about people from Puerto Rico. The excuse for such offensive talk normally is that it was “just a joke”. Does it make a difference that a comedian said these words and not a politician? Does it make a difference that these words were said at a political rally rather than a comedy club? Arguably, the context of a rally than a comedy club makes it far more offensive. However, such jokes create a climate where people think it can be acceptable to say such things, whatever the context.
Is it best to steer away then from trying to be funny? No – but it’s important to make ethical and informed decisions about how and whether we joke about controversial subjects.
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Manon Ceridwen James is an Anglican priest and contextual theologian based on the north Wales coast. She is Dean at the St Padarn’s Institute, the theological training institution of the Church in Wales, Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Wales, Trinity St David and Canon Theologian at Newport Cathedral.
Her research interests, teaching and writing are focussed on feminist theology, Welsh theology, theology and humour, as well as trauma theology. Her most recent performance of stand-up comedy was at the St Asaph Music Festival Fringe, and she has also published a poetry collection, Notes from a Eucharistic Life (Cinnamon Press).
Ian Macdonald, Tutor in Mission here, will lead a course on preaching and stand-up comedy on 5 June 2025. Contact us on courses@sarum.ac.uk to be notified when tickets are available.
View the first post on Stand Up: Why Stand Up is on my bucket list
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