Discover and Develop Your Stand-up Comedy Persona (On Zoom)
- Chris Head
- May 28
- 3 min read
Updated: Jun 2
I'm running a two part workshop online for gigging comics to explore their persona. 7pm-9pm UK time, Tues 22nd & 29th July 2025, £75 (On Zoom)
Are you a stand-up comedian looking to discover your authentic comedic voice? To find your persona (that on stage version of you) that underpins your material and guides your writing?
Well, that takes time... but you can speed things up with this two part Zoom session!
Whether you've just started out or have plenty of gigs under your belt, understanding and embracing your on-stage persona focuses your writing and performance and enables the audience to immediately get you.
Join me in these engaging and interactive online Zoom sessions. This isn't about taking on a character that is removed from your identity; it's about magnifying and focusing the comedic potential already within you. By the end of the sessions, you'll have a clearer understanding of your unique on-stage presence and actionable insights to refine your stand-up, making every performance genuinely yours.
In this dynamic workshop, we’ll explore:
Positives and negatives Your on-stage persona isn't necessarily a mask you put on, but rather it's an amplified and focused version of parts of yourself – a mix of positive and negative qualities. The positive being why the audience like you (for example friendly, playful) and the negative being why they find you funny (for example angry, scatty). Find out your positive (likeable) and negative (funny) attitudes. Here's a handy list of positive and negatives we use as a resource.
Status
Your funniest and most effective on-stage character can often be defined by the status you project in relation to the audience and the world at large. This status informs your attitude, worldview, and how you deliver your material.
The three status levels stand-ups work with are:
High Status: Comedians with a high-status persona look down on the world's problems, and often the audience itself, from a position of superiority, insight, or authority. They are the experts, the ones who have it all figured out.
Mate Status: This is a more egalitarian persona. The "audience's mate" shares their observations and frustrations with the audience on an equal footing. They create a sense of camaraderie, as if they are all in it together, laughing at the absurdities of life.
Low Status: A low-status comedian is put-upon by the world. They are the victims of life's absurdities and their own failings. This persona often elicits sympathy and laughter through their struggles and inability to cope.
As we will explore, you can embody a primary status while also incorporating elements of a secondary one. This blending can create a more nuanced and compelling persona. For instance, a high-status comedian might also display vulnerability (a low-status trait) to remain likeable and avoid alienating the audience.
Archetypes
Explore your archetypes and find out how understanding which ones resonate with your natural tendencies can help you amplify your unique comedic perspective, ensuring your performances are not just funny, but also deeply resonant and memorable. Read more about stand-up archetypes here.
Plus:
Your quirks!
Quirks: Through practical exercises and guided feedback, we'll pinpoint the unique qualities, perspectives, and, yes, the quirks that make you, you.
How it works
Before the course begins you will share with me a video of you on stage. In the first session we will watch and discuss carefully selected clips from the video that highlight aspects of your comedic persona.
You’ll also do quick, playful exercises where you respond to creative prompts. These prompts are not a test of how funny you are, rather they're about seeing the way in which you playfully come up with a response.
Between the two sessions you work on a new short piece to share at the start of the second session. Again, while it will be playful and probably funny, the intent is to reveal something about your persona.
This second session then takes the form of the other members of the group (and me) feeding back to you how they perceive your persona. It is always clearer to those looking in than it is to the comic themselves.
We'll also look at:
Honing Your Delivery: Learn how to leverage your natural rhythm, tone, and physicality to amplify your persona and land your jokes with impact.
Connecting with Your Audience: Understand how a well-defined persona builds rapport, fosters trust, and allows your audience to truly "get" you. Crucially we’ll explore how you can develop an opening that tells the audience how you are.
Join us to find your authentic stage voice. Be funnier, clearer, and more impactful.
Ready to find your comedic voice? Book today!
