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I Watched a Zoom Standup Comedy Show — Here’s What Happened
Standup comedy, like other live art-forms, has been one of the industries hardest hit by the ‘Rona’.
In fact, 3.4 million people in this sector will be out of work as a result of the virus in Australia alone.
Not only are we seeing the closure of comedy clubs and the cancelation of comedy festivals worldwide, such as the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, which is directly impacting comic revenues, it’s also affecting their ability to write and perform at a high standard.
A major part of both writing and delivering good standup comedy is getting up in front of people, night after night, to hone your style and gain valuable feedback from the crowd by way of laughter or blank stares — something I learned the hard way.
This is what informs the writing process and the subsequent iteration and hopefully, improvement of jokes. Without this, and without the wealth of day-to-day experiences to draw material from, many a comedian might find themselves anxious about making a return to the stage.
As Joe Rogan put it in a recent episode of his podcast, “I wanna be there (LA’s Comedy Store) the first night everyone comes back”, implying that it’s probably going to be a shitshow!
