Stand-Up Crowd Work: Working with Persona Games

In London on Saturday 14 June, 11am-3.30pm at Theatre Deli (near Liverpool Street station) I am running a crowd work workshop (£95).

Many comedians will jump into audience interactions with nothing planned. And with the right persona, mindset and experience, this can work. However, especially when you're newer to crowd work, you can go into interactions with attitudes, approaches, and responses lined up. These "persona games" provide structure and comedic direction to your crowd work. I write about this approach below.

In the video, Geoff Whiting (a master at crowd work who I am running workshop with) is using one of his favourite games - creating characters from audience members by exaggerating an observed trait. In this case, he picks up on a woman who seems unhappy and asks what's wrong... Geoff repeats her reply* (in fact, subtly rephrasing it) then turns her into an instant character.

*In crowd work, repeating what's said ensures all audience members understand the context of your response.

See below for lots more games you can try.

Persona Games

Successful crowd work hinges on a well-defined persona. Your stage presence shapes audience interaction and the comedic impact of your responses. When you have a sense of your persona you can have in mind “persona games” that you can take into crowd work (and a comedian with many years experience will be doing this quite naturally, without thinking about it or planning it).

To start to find your own persona games, it can be effective to identify, for example two or three you can have in mind, to draw on when interacting with audience members.

Here are examples of persona games for audience interaction. Remember, shifting from one-on-one interaction to addressing the entire audience or enacting a scenario (an act-out) can be highly effective.

Persona Games:

• Characterise: This game involves instantly creating characters from audience members by exaggerating an observed trait. This is a great one if you do a lot of act-outs and voices in your stand-up persona. See the above video!

• Recontextualise: A classic comedy game is to take something small and put it in a big context - in the video Geoff takes the idea of whispering heckler and puts it in the big context of Ninjas!

• Offer Bad Advice: Solicit a problem and provide intentionally poor advice, either oblivious to its flaws or being deliberately mischievous or malicious. Which way you go will depend on your persona.

• Overthinking: If your material involves comedic overthinking, ruminate excessively on an audience member's comment.

• Short Fuse: React disproportionately angrily to minor comments, especially if the comment is innocuous.

• Awkwardness: Amplify your inherent awkwardness, becoming comically inept during the interaction.

• Shamelessness: Freely discuss embarrassing topics or reveal personal secrets.

• Being Out of Touch: Misuse slang and references, particularly if there's an age gap with the audience member.

• Playing Innocent: Deliver cutting remarks while feigning innocence.

• The Non-Expert: Attempt to appear knowledgeable about a specialized topic, filling gaps with whimsical speculation.

• Extreme Stances: Express excessively positive or negative opinions about an audience member's job (for example), praising the mundane and dismissing the prestigious.

• Finding Connections: Link audience members based on previous interactions, suggesting unexpected benefits or relationships that would come from them getting together.

• Gushing Then Critical: Over-praise a trait, then abruptly switch to a critical comment.

• Frame Their Response: Interpret their response as a business idea, product slogan, or movie quote.

  
  

Pick 3 to take on stage with you!

By identifying your persona games, you can prepare for interactions with ready-to-go strategies. This preparedness makes you more relaxed and so more open to entirely unplanned ideas too.

These games work best if they align with attitudes you've successfully used in your material. You can discover what games work best for you by reviewing videos of your stand-up gigs and identifying the "game" they are playing when things are working. Feedback from others can also be helpful. Often others can spot games you use which are so natural you are not consciously aware of them.

Stand-up Crowd Work Masterclass June 2025 LONDON

Saturday 14 June, 11am-3.30pm at Theatre Deli (near Liverpool Street station) £95

Develop your stand-up crowd work skills with top MC Geoff Whiting and comedy director Chris Head. Info and booking.