Anybody willing to critique my standup?

Cafe Society
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For about a year now, I’ve been doing standup comedy at open mic nights at bars and clubs near me. Most recently I was part of an open mic night at a comedy club in my hometown. It was in a smaller room in the club, about 70 folks in the audience. Here’s the set.

I really enjoy doing this, but I think my sets are too uneven. I’ve got several good jokes (at least, in my opinion), but sometimes it feels like the setups are too long and that affects the pace.

From what I’ve seen locally, the standups who get the biggest laughs seem to focus on swearing a lot and making sexual references. My style is more laid-back and not blue at all, which isn’t really what seems to work as well.

Interested in feedback and suggestions from the Doper community.

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Disclaimer: I have an attenuated sense of humor, no comedian would want me in the front rows, I’d be looking back politely and smiling 4-5 times during their monologue. And I could never do standup myself.

Early impressions (first couple sentences) - framed as a relatable char

good timing, wait for aud to get there & then you put it into words

shift topics (betw cremation and bending down to pick something up): a longer pause would be good here, to avoid audience thinking you’re continuing the prev story / topic

no butt → drew laughs, I don’t understand why

“…and for $10 you can” → okay that was funny / good timing on deliv

“tv / pickleball / being in the gym to build up butt” → you’ve got a lot of little topics in the air and at this point I don’t see where you’re going and the situation isn’t particularly interesting or funny, waiting to see where you’re going with this

turns out to be a pivot to the behavior of the tv-pickleball guy who says “haaah!”. so that’s a lot of unfunny / uninteresting material to get from no butt to over-the-top self-congrat behavior

thence to doing the “haaah!” thing being gendered, this is interesting (altho if I’d been in your audience I’d be listening attentively at this pt but not laughing)

“how many married to my wife…well we’re Mormon it could happen” okay that was funny and good timing once again

every once in a while your enunciation isn’t ideal and I’ve had to back up the video and replay to catch the words:: my why of ashly (“my wife, Ashley”), let’s step outside a sack of rye hope how lee uff (never did get it, gave up after 4th re-listen)

nice things about ashley → expecting a sudden unexpected funny left turn in the quick litany of characteristics. instead a pause, “…however” this time your timing doesn’t work for me

I like the image of her peeling folks’ sunburned skin, relatable (I could tell some about my mom’s obsession with other folks’ blackheads and pimples), funny and potentially funnier let’s see where this goes…

“pronounced serial killer” → timing and pause could be better here. do like you did with the $10 to see your butt, wait for audience to get there

fedex pkg to the mall → again with the way you shift topics, I’m still briefly expecting a continuation of Ashley as serial killer / skin peeler…

“ups not fedex… sound-effect of saloon when the bad guys walk in” → oh very nice! totally with you, intrinsically funny characterization / recognition of the trope

“how stupid are you / do everything your wife says?” → was on the verge of saying unfunny then you circled back to the skin peeling, just as I’d stopped anticipating it! Nice!!!

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Well, that’s 6 minutes and 19 seconds of my life that I’ll never get back… :wink:

Haha! I kid, I kid. I thought it was a pretty decent set. I’ve seen many opening acts at comedy clubs that were no better than that set.

The rhythm was ok, the punchlines twisting the expectation of the setup, as in the ‘serial killer’ joke were there, even the callback about ‘skin-peeling’ at the end. You have a good grasp of the ‘tools’ or tricks of the trade of comedy.

So what would I recommend to get you to the next level? I am hardly an expert when it comes to comedy, but I think I have pretty good sense of humor in general, and I do listen to a lot of podcasts where comedians talk about comedy ‘inside baseball’. One thing I’ve heard several times from comedians is that there’s no such thing as an overnight success-- it takes about 10 years, I’ve heard, to find and develop your ‘comedy voice’. You say you’ve been doing it for only about a year.

As for your observation that comedians who get the biggest laughs work more blue, I wouldn’t worry about that. Some of the funniest current comedians are very clean, such as Brain Regan and Jim Gaffigan. If ‘blue’ is not your style, don’t try to force it. Also I wouldn’t worry too much about your setups going too long. You could maybe stand to clean up some of it a bit, such as the Fedex store setup, but there are storyteller comedians that have long setups that pay off greatly. Mike Birbiglia (another mostly ‘clean’ comic) is probably the best current example of that.

So in short, I wouldn’t worry about changing up your style too much if at all, just craft and hone it until it’s the best version of your particular style or ‘voice’ it can be. And again, that’s not an overnight process.

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I don’t have any critique on content, really - it was fine, I’ve seen much worse, you didn’t seem super amateur, and I don’t think you need to go blue at all.

I liked your delivery. You sounded confident but not too cocky. Your flow was nice.

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Didn’t know what “blue” meant w.r.t. standup until just now when I googled it (means raunchy or gross-out humor apparently). I had incorrectly inferred that it meant depressive/cynical comedy, or perhaps jokes aimed at a blue-collar audience’s sympathies and predilections.

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Thanks, all! This is helpful.

solost, Birbiglia and Gaffigan are two of my inspirations, along with Nate Bargatze. I have no plans whatsoever of working blue – it’s just frustrating to see that approach get more response.

ZipperJJ, I appreciate the kind words. I think flow is one of my biggest issues at the moment, so I’m trying to improve it.

AHunter3, that may be one of the most in-depth breakdowns I’ve ever gotten – more so than my family, even. Thanks very much for the time you took and the feedback. (For what it’s worth, the bit you couldn’t understand was “You insulted my wife. Let’s step outside. Zachariah, hold my milk.”)

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Standup by a guy named Sauron? No thanks, I don’t need more one-liners like “Those orcs, am I right?”

But then I watched, and it was hilarious. Thanks!
I especially liked the little “parentheticals”:
“If you’ve seen me naked (and for ten bucks you can)…”

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Seemed good. Some stuff worked - I laughed; some not as well. But you seemed like a legit comedian doing jokes. I would certainly keep at it.

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Thank you, digs and CoolHandCox!

One of the challenges I have is trying to put as much material on video as I can. I don’t want to repeat jokes from other sets I’ve done, because I’m trying to build a repertoire of material to share across social media. So I’m regularly creating new sets as opposed to selecting the “best” bits and building a tight set with them … which means I don’t always have my transitions and timing down as well as I’d like when I perform.

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Agreed. For someone doing 6 minutes at an open mic night I would pass on having to go on after you.
You covered a lot of material/subjects in 6 minutes which kept it fresh and none of the jokes were obvious or low hanging fruit which I hate. Even stuff that didn’t hit with me seemed to go over well with the audience so you have a nice mix of subjects.
The transitions were somewhat abrupt but I think I liked that. I prefer to have to stay on my toes and “keep up” with where you are going rather than “oh, I see where he’s going next with this, predictable, obvious.”

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Not bad. You made a connection with the audience. Self deprecating humor is good. Norm MacDonald said don’t make yourself sound smarter then your audience, I think you got that done just right. The criticism I have is that you didn’t build up the laughs and finish big, just an even pace through the set. The callback to skin peeling was good though. A lot of would be comics don’t do as well as you did and the audience only applauds because they’re done. Just find that big closer.

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Thank you, TriPolar. You’re right – I’ve struggled with finding that big closing joke. I did it in a different set, but I got the timing wrong and the laughter overshadowed one of the punchlines.

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All great inspirations!

I mentioned that I listen to podcasts with comedians talking comedy ‘inside baseball’. Another bit of wisdom I’ve heard from them is that a comedian needs to bomb onstage in order to become truly great. Not just because bombing toughens you up and gives you a thicker skin, though that’s part of it.

The other part of it is, it’s possible to never quite bomb by resorting to ‘blue’ humor or adding f-bombs to otherwise clean jokes, generating cheap laughs. Someone will always laugh at an f-bomb or a dirty joke. You may never bomb that way, but you never find your true ‘comedy voice’ and rise above mediocrity. Of course, that’s not to say that swearing or ‘blue’ humor can’t be employed by great comedians if that is truly their style or comedy voice, but if used as a crutch to get cheap laughs, it’s self-limiting. So don’t get discouraged by others who are getting more laughs by working blue-- they’re probably taking the easy route.

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OP seemed comfortable, that already helps the audience relax. No one likes to feel uncomfortable, much less feel like laughing when they are.

I am convinced ‘comedic material’ is just the product of a lonely life spent on the road doing standup. The more you do it the more material it generates. I suppose a great comedian can distill the hilarity out of the human condition, but man does that life look bleak to me whatever a standups skill.

Good luck!

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Oh, I bombed hugely over the summer. Made it to the last day of a three-day comedy challenge and then laid a massive egg in my final set. Also did a set at a local bar hosting an open-mic night and got zero laughs. It’s not fun.

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Go watch Baby Reindeer…a couple of episodes show the main character truly bombing.