Do Stand-up Crowd Work Like Taylor Tomlinson!
- Chris Head
- Apr 22
- 4 min read
Updated: May 1
My video features a great example of crowd work from Taylor Tomlinson, and I’m going to discuss how you too can do crowd work in Tomlinson style! Firstly though, how do you find the right person to talk to, whatever approach you’re taking?
Even before you go on, you can pre-scan the room for specific "types". Before you even go on stage, discreetly scan the crowd to find specific demographic types that fit your material, or that would suit your crowd work. For example, you might be looking for a younger couple, a handsome guy, someone in sportswear, or a nerdy "Harry Potter" type in glasses.
When you’re picking someone to speak to from the stage, notice visual eccentricities. Look for someone in the audience who is naturally drawing attention to themselves. This could be through their behaviour, a specific hairstyle, an eccentric drink they are holding, or a piece of standout clothing like a ridiculously loud shirt. (If they tick all three boxes it could be Milton Jones...)
When starting crowd work with a question from the stage, instead of cold-picking someone at random who might not want to interact, ask a question to the whole room first (like "Who's in a relationship here?"). Watch how people react. This allows you to gauge the room and identify someone who is open, responsive and willing to play along.
Ideally, you should interact with people in the first few rows. If you have to stretch your attention to pick out someone at the very back of the room, it looks like you are trying too hard. Engaging with people near the front keeps the interaction feeling casual and natural.
Pay close attention to how people are sitting, especially couples. By observing their physical dynamic, you can often intuit their relationship status. For example, a couple who are not touching and looking away from each other might be a long-established married couple, whereas a couple who are very tactile might be on a first date or newly together. You can then use these physical clues to spark a conversation.
Then once you have found your person, a loaded question with emotional content can be a good starting point. In the video, Taylor Tomlinson has found someone who is in a relatively new relationship and asks, “Have you said ‘I love you’ already?”.
This is a closed questions. At this point there are two ways this can go: she has or she hasn’t. (An open question, for example, might be something like, “what do you love about him?”) If you open an interaction with a closed question, (that has a yes/no answer) rather than open-ended ones, this allows you to map out your routes in advance: you can prepare one funny response if they say "yes," another if they say "no". In this case, the audience member says she has said ‘I love you’. This leads to crowd work gold, but Tomlinson also would have had a plan B for the answer ‘no’.
Also in this case, she is not looking to get one quick laugh, she is digging deep. So, from here, to do crowd work like Taylor Tomlinson, treat the audience member like a close friend. Instead of adopting the common approach of acting aloof, trying to trip them up, or putting them down, you could appear genuinely invested and engaged in what the audience member is saying. Then, take your time and explore, as Tomlinson does. Rather than rushing to find the next funny thing or punchline, thoughtfully probe and follow the natural flow of the conversation until you organically arrive at a funny reaction to a comment they have made.
Make sure you repeat back what the audience member says to you so that everyone in the room can hear the exchange and feel included in the conversation. Keep the interaction moving by frequently switching your attitude. In Tomlinson’s case, she starts off being sympathetic, concerned, and interested, briefly show faux vulnerability, and then abruptly shifts her energy to complete outrage. So, be nimble and aim to come at the conversation from a number of different emotional perspectives.
London stand-up crowd work sessions
I run crowd work sessions with Geoff Whiting who is renowned for his crowd work, getting many of his laughs (often as as a compère) through audience interaction. There’s one technique in particular that is a hallmark of Geoff’s.
Geoff frequently picks up on an aspect of an audience member and turns them into an exaggerated character. He "ventriloquises" them by adopting his idea of their voice and puts words into their mouths. For example, if he spots someone in the front row with their arms folded, he will act out what that person is secretly thinking to generate comedy.
When someone heckles, after an initial interaction, Geoff will often walk away from the heckler to a different part of the stage, performing the impersonation and playing with the reaction from a distance rather than engaging them directly face-to-face. He says it’s “almost like talking about them behind their back”.
For example, here’s a clip where Geoff dubs a quiet audience member a "ninja type heckler," playfully acting out the woman's imaginary internal satisfaction at secretly heckling him in whispers all night!
We run regular crowd work sessions for gigging acts on Saturdays in London.