Chris HeadApr 225 minHow to Find Your Stand-up Comedy PersonaA key session in my London stand-up comedy course is where we explore your persona (and in the video above you can hear me talking about...
Chris HeadSep 3, 20212 minMy online Sitcom/ Comedy Drama coursesI now run two great online narrative comedy writing classes for sitcom and comedy drama. They have been done by people all over the UK,...
Chris HeadApr 13, 20204 minChris Head's Stand-up Comedy ClassesI run stand-up comedy classes live in LONDON (info below!) and ONLINE. LONDON CLASSES - 6.45PM to 8.45PM in SOHO Stand-up Comedy:...
Chris HeadJan 4, 20197 minLesson 25: Endings & DeathsTwenty-five years ago I got myself an open-spot at the venerable Bearcat comedy club in Twickenham, greater London. I was at university...
Chris HeadNov 29, 20186 minLesson 24: Compering a Night (And Being Funny While Doing It)With Geoff Whiting, who has hosted literally thousands of shows, I run an MC course. Insights from the course with Geoff have fed into...
Chris HeadNov 2, 20186 minLesson 23: Dealing with HecklingHecklers often believe that heckling is all part of the fun and that comedians welcome it and that it helps them. While there are some...
Chris HeadSep 4, 20185 minLesson 22: Thoughts from a Newer Act and A Pro (on Material, Gigs and Shows)For this the twenty-second lesson I thought I’d speak to a couple of working comics. To get a broad perspective I spoke to one newer act,...
Chris HeadJul 5, 20184 minLesson 21: Writing & ImprovIn the last lesson I discussed Set List, the entirely improvised stand-up night. In this lesson, I’m discussing the use of “games” in...
Chris HeadJun 14, 20189 minLesson 20: Persona & ImprovI'd been planning a lesson on persona and inspired by a question from a reader of my blog Ronan Anderson, I have combined the topic with...
Chris HeadJun 14, 201810 minLesson 19: Analysing Seinfeld's Cab Drivers routineIn this bumper blog we’ll see pretty much everything we’ve discussed about stand-up writing in a two-and-a-half minute Jerry Seinfeld...
Chris HeadJun 9, 20185 minLesson 18: Comic AnalogiesMark, a stand-up student of mine on my intermediate new material course, asked me to say more about what he termed ‘comedy metaphors’,...
Chris HeadApr 27, 20184 minLesson 17: Rule Of Three, Callbacks & AnachronismsTwenty five is a nice neat number isn’t it? It’d be a shame if it were ‘27’ lessons – hence me combining these three topics. I think I...
Chris HeadMar 29, 20184 minLesson 16: PersonificationIn the last few lessons we've been exploring transpositions. Let's end this exploration on personification. Also known as...
Chris HeadMar 22, 20184 minLesson 15: Bathos (Big/Small)In the previous lesson we discussed transpositions. We’re going to develop this idea and look at a common comic effect that can be...
Chris HeadMar 16, 20185 minLesson 14: TranspositionsIn the previous lesson I discussed the importance of going beyond what actually happened, and going into playful speculation. In your...
Chris HeadMar 10, 20187 minLesson 13: Questions to Spark IdeasComedy, and all creativity, begins with questions. What takes you into comic territory, rather than literary or dramatic territory, is...
Chris HeadMar 2, 20186 minLesson 12: TimingA stand-up will send me a video of their set and I will watch it, meeting them subsequently to discuss my observations on their material...
Chris HeadFeb 23, 201813 minLesson 11: Writing One-linersHOW TO WRITE ONE-LINER JOKES How do you write one-liners? It all starts with words and phrases the comic encounters (or seeks out) in...
Chris HeadFeb 16, 20185 minLesson 10: Turning true stories into stand-upThere’s a problem with true stories in a stand-up context. The long set-up followed by the quick payoff is often the form that anecdotes...
Chris HeadFeb 10, 20185 minLesson 9: Using social gags in stand-upIn 2007 I interviewed Richard Herring in a Caffe Nero in Hammersmith for the short-lived comedy magazine The Fix. I’d recently seen him...