Experimental Comedy Part 2: A Game Of Hoss

Experimental Comedy Part 2: A Game Of Hoss

Introduction to the Essay

Hello everyone!

Thanks for clicking on this! You must be a comedy nerd or some kinda stalker. Either way - I'm grateful that you are here.

So this is another of my experimetal comedy blogs. Instead of dressing up as Hitler this time, I dress up as Jon Snow.

This is QUITE academic of an essay. It's a bit hoighty toighty. But it is interesting. I explain what I'm on about during the essay - but the gist of it is - How do a get an audience to get fully behind my Game Of Thrones show despite people having not known the prior references.

It's that fun all the way through.

However I would be happy to release the footage - if there were enough interest. I don't want to put it it out public yet. But if there are enough people keen to see it - just tweet at me (@matthosscomedy) .

Here we go. My experimental comedy essay about Game Of Thrones.

How can you make a successful stand-up show despite varying levels of knowledge from within the audience?

Making a successful stand-up comedy show from of a limited pool of references.

Introduction

For my experimental comedy show, I wanted to experiment with references and how they are used when engaging an audience. References are a staple for comedians’ jokes. They offer a workbench for joke-crafting and are “the basic blocks of knowledge from which the joke is built” (Double,2014;221). References are a shorthand for getting across comedic images within moments, however as it requires the audience to have prior knowledge, it can be simultaneously inclusive and excluding.

Double writes: “In order to understand it, the audience must recognise whatever words, names, places, news stories, songs, movies, TV shows or other cultural artefacts it may contain. It’s a process of shared understanding” (Double,2014;221). These references are common in stand-up, with references to films, idioms and celebrities; however these references can be significantly more acute than these.

My experiment was to do a show based on a single pool of knowledge, in which consists of the references from a solitary source.  This project is similar to Phill Jupitus’  Star Wars show entitled Jedi Steady Go and also Paul Sinha’s The Sinha Carta, which comically discusses The Magna Carta. Doing similarly niche routines, are comedians like Robin Ince on science[1], Bridget Christie on feminism[2] as well as Mark Steel’s series of comedy lectures[3], alongside others.

From seeing this, my show was to do routines associated exclusively with the book and television series: Game Of Thrones. As an obsessive of the franchise, my show was to create references on which I could write an entire show exclusively about Game of Thrones.

The challenge is that the audience is divided in regards to their knowledge of the series, as they may be book fans, television fans or uninformed, thus there are three demographics that I have to perform to. Stewart Lee in 90’s Comedian refers to this situation as a “mixed-ability room” (Lee;2006). My experiment was to make all parties enjoy the show and have the audience simultaneously laugh, regardless of their prior Game Of Thrones knowledge. Did the audience need knowledge of a subject to laugh at it? I had to make Game Of Thrones universally funny for the non-fans whilst appeasing the well-read fans and negotiate between the differing knowledges. Failure, in this show, meant alienating a part of my audience. 

In this essay, I will discuss the writing process of the show in terms of how my research influenced my decisions whilst creating the show. I will also discuss the show itself and analysing the successes, the results and the effectiveness of my Game Of Thrones show.

The process of writing the show

Shared Knowledge, Bisociation and Springboarding.

The writing process was difficult, as I had the challenge of making a show entirely structured from Game Of Thrones. Whilst there was material that I could make about Westeros’ logic, the reference points had to be carefully selected. The skill in the show was to negotiate with the audience in both writing and performance. The writing had to be meaningful and fun for the audience that understood the references, but the context, set-up and inferences had to be coherently enjoyable for the uninformed.

Stewart Lee explains finding a perfect reference for his Scottish audience in Stand-Up Comedian. Lee needs a location which shows his knowledge in Scottish culture and chooses “Glamis Castle” (Lee,2006). He discusses this reference:

“[T]he trick was to find somewhere suitably obscure that would delight an audience by its apparent oddness, but at the same time ring enough bells to get laughs. I suppose that’s a trick many of us employ throughout our stand-up – trying to employ a reference or a structural device that’s just close enough to the edge of comprehensibility to make the audience feel flattered, whilst at the same time not doing something arcane that it deliberately freezes out the majority of the room”

(Lee;2010,89)

What Lee describes as the “edge of comprehensibility” acts as my show’s starting point by only discussing one thing. This means that the writing must be universally funny, to stray away from this ‘edge’. Failure would mean toppling off and success would be a balancing act. This was my writing aim.

When I had workable references, the struggle was how to utilise them. The first hurdle was addressing the challenge within the room: the lack of ‘shared knowledge’ puts me at a disadvantage. Shared knowledge is a powerful tool to for a comedian, as it has the power to create to big laughs and unite the audience.

An example of this is to analyse how reincorporation gags work[4]: the comedian delivers information on a subject and the audience adopts this comedic knowledge. Later, the comedian will surprise the audience by referring back to the earlier joke, which simultaneously impresses the audience and makes them laugh.

Shared knowledge, however, does not always refer to the information given by comedians in a single performance. It may reference an earlier joke in the comedian’s career, like a catchphrase or routine[5] and the comedian plays with the audiences’ knowledge.  Steve Martin shows this in action in A Wild And Crazy Guy.

Steve: If you bought my album and came down here expecting me to do a-lot routines from the record and I didn’t do them, maybe one or two, there is a reason for that. I think performers have to move on. You just can’t do the same old material over and over and over. I think it’s a cheat to have to rely on the same stuff. And if you don’t agree with me: WELL EXCUUUUUSSSEE MEEEEEE [Roars of applause].

(Martin, 1978)

This joke gets a howling response, as it directly references his first album: Let’s Get Small, in which Martin (under comic conceit) askes the technical crew for lighting which the technicians ignore:

Steve: I come out here and can’t get a little co-operation from the BACKSTAGE CREW?!  [Laughter] EXCUUUUUSSSEE MEEE! [Laughter and applause]. 

(Martin, 1977)

As Martin references his own work, he gets an extreme response. Martin gains some laughs from his joke, but gains the extreme wave of applause by reemploying his renowned gag.  This shows that shared knowledge, when universal can have an impact, especially if it feels like an inside joke. It makes the audience feel like insiders. Whilst shared knowledge is lacking in my piece, I wondered if there was a way in which I could relay information to the audience. Then the uninformed could understand the references and laugh, as well as have the fans enjoying the inside information, making my show successful.

I then looked at Alexei Sayle as he has potentially alienating jokes. Sayle mentions Chekhov, Kierkegaard and Russian history. If Sayle is able to make these references without alienating his audience but gain laughter that means that my challenge would be achievable.

Sayle does a routine about Josef Stalin staying around his house in Cak, like he was an uncle. Sayle concludes his list of associations with:

Alexei: Just stay away from the fridge young Trotsky! [laughter]”.

(Sayle,1982)

This is an incredibly niche reference. It refers to Leon Trotsky being assassinated by an ice-pick by the orders of Stalin. There is a high risk to alienate the audience with this joke due to lack of knowledge (the stakes are drastically less than my show, but the effect is the same). Sayle proves, however, the knowledge is not wholly needed. Double says whilst discussing Sayle: “It’s wrong to underestimate an audience’s ability to cope with more difficult references” (Double,2014;232).  Sayle, as quoted in Double’s book, states: “It’s about finding the telling phrase”.

With gestures, inflections and joke-craft, Sayle infers lots of information upon the audience. The audience assumes the gist of the joke, without knowing specifics. This is a significant discovery. Double points out something significant: “All that matters is that the audience share the comedian’s understanding of the reference”(Double,2014;235). This meant that I could discuss the references which I wanted and the uninformed audience would infer the information, given the comedian’s context is strong enough.

With this, I looked at some of Jupitus’ Star Wars material to prove this hypothesis. Jupitus uses colloquialisms to describe Star Wars. Whilst discussing the Mos Eisley Cantina scene, he illustrates Luke as a nervous teenager:

Phill: Luke, behind him, is like your nephew. You know when you take your nephew to the pub for the first time and he is about 15? You take them in there and they got that look about them – that kinda [Gaunt, chewing and nervous expression]. [Laughter] They are really red. And-and you come around to them:  What would you like Steven?
Steven: Uh-Ah! A Lager?! [Laughter].

(Jupitus,1995)

Jupitus demonstrates that the reference is not laughing at a Star Wars observation, but a real-life observation about teen-drinkers. Jupitus introduces the uninformed audience to the world of Star Wars with a recognisable situation.  Jupitus states: “I’ll tell the whole story of the film…so if you don’t know the story of the film-don’t worry-this is one long plot spoiler” (Jupitus,2015).

By using Koestler’s theory of “Bisociation”[6] I believed that I would be able to develop my material even further. Bisociation is where we take two incongruous “frames of references” (Koestler,1975;37) and intersect the two ideas for comic effect.

Koestler theorises that “the sudden bisociation of an idea or event with two habitually incompatible matrices will produce a comic effect, provided that the narrative, the semantic pipeline, carries the right kind of emotional tension” (Koestler,1975;51). Koestler has a diagram showing two matrices of logic (M1 and M2 respectively) intersecting and a line charting it where laughter (L) would be.

My theory was that if I use Game of Thrones as a single plane of logic, I can intersect this matrix with infinite of other ideas. M1 would always be Game Of Thrones but M2 could be anything, meaning that it could still be relatable for the uninformed. By having M2 bypassing the knowledge of M1, it still results in ‘L’. Through bisociation, my Game Of Thrones jokes can be unitedly funny.  Put into the correct gag structure, the audience would infer the appropriate Game Of Thrones knowledge for the joke.

Robert Newman demonstrates this bisociation during a performance of The Brain Show, a show about neuroscience. Newman establishes a bitesize fact about the brain and bisociates it with an incongruity. He uses the established logic as a starting point for his comedy and ‘springboards’ into a routine sparked by the bisociation. The audience do not need to know the neuroscience, just the incongruity which the comedian has highlighted.  This can be seen with a routine beginning with an absurd academic neurological claim that Japanese people cannot differentiate between fear and surprise. Newman ‘springs’ from this by impersonating Yoko Ono being unable to understand the emotionless Paul McCartney (Newman,2016). Neuroscience to Newman, as Game Of Thrones is to me, is simply a starting point.

Newman shows his ‘spring-boarding’ capabilities through his previous work as well. In History Of Oil, Newman discusses the Iraq invasion in World War One and discusses the idea of a “Special Poets battalion” and how they wouldn’t last very long at war. From this point his springs into a flight of fancy which builds upon the foundation of his bisociation:

“Robert: You are in the map room…the general is saying:

General: IF the special poets battalion decides to pitch camp here (touches map) they’ll cut our supply line in two…Fortunately however they have decided to pitch camp here: where doppled shade falls on rustic farm equipment [laughs]… near an almond grove where walks a young shepherd’s boy with an unblemished complexion [laughter]”

(Newman,2006)

By being faced with the problem of a broken shared knowledge and a disparate audience, through research I have found a way to discuss Game Of Thrones: through bisociating its logic with more universal subjects. Therefore the audience is only required to know of the ‘M2’ subject and the contextual information for Game Of Thrones that I infer. The audience then will interpret the necessary information into the bisociation. In theory, the audience should be able to follow. In short, I would be discussing Game Of Thrones, but I’m only discussing its unique incongruities to help fuel more universally engaging routines. I developed this throughout my entire show, but this can be seen within my ‘Westeros Sex-positions’ as they take the theme of Game Of Thrones, but ultimately relate to sex in a comedic context. This can also be seen with my bisociation between Sansa Stark singing Alanis Morrisette. The audience are not necessary laughing at the Game Of Thrones reference but at the incongruity of both ideas intertwined.

Jupitus summarises my findings with his explanation of Jedi Steady Go: “It starts off with someone explaining Star Wars to you for an hour, with jokes, that’s what the show was. So even if you hadn’t seen it – it still worked” (Jupitus,2015).

Creating material: The persona perspective.

With research in mind, I wanted two halves to the show: material based upon my persona relating to the subject and material based upon the storyline. With the persona segment, the audience would be initially laughing at my obsession, my passion to the world’s logic and not necessarily at Game Of Thrones itself. Therefore, this made the show universal for the audience, as the comic points comes from my persona, thus no prior knowledge is needed.

An example of this was my material about my getting my first ever kiss:

Matt: My first ever kiss was with my second-cousin….it was a disgusting thing to happen but equally I was like: YES I’M ONE OF THE BIGGEST FANS OF GAME OF THRONES...Anyone else in the room would get memorabilia for Game Of thrones. Not me – I go the extra mile. I make out with second cousin. [Pause, followed by laughter].

The stories are made funny because of my weird persona. The show is firmly rooted with Game Of Thrones, however my persona is a tool which transcends this and allows the audience to be united in laughter, as my jokes are aimed at myself. These jokes give justification for my obsession, as I demonstrate the reasons why I love it. My persona vividly works consistently through my piece but is established in this segment. 

Creating material: Narrative.

The second half of my show would be discussing the narrative of series two, to avoid spoilers. I wanted to avoid spoilers entirely to avoid the risk of alienating or aggravating an audience member who were currently reading or watching the series. In this half, though the risk of alienation was high, unexpectedly the writing for this was far easier compared to normal routines. Since I was discussing a pre-existing storyline, it was inherently easier to springboard from different routines, as the plot acts as a vehicle to get the next piece of material.

The plot which acts as a vehicle, is similar to Stewart Lee’s Pea Green Boat.  Lee reads a stanza and then narrates The Owl’s increasingly deranged logs (Lee,2007). Lee uses the poem to allow the character to escalate over the period of the show. Equally, this is similar to Sinha’s Magna Carta show, as he narrates this history of the document, in-between spring-boarding into different material (Sinha,2015).  This device was significantly useful in creating the second half of my show. The Game Of Thrones material slotted into place with easy-to-follow structure.

Manipulating responses.

I stumbled across a final way to reach out to my audience: by using verbal devices to allow the audience to understand when they are meant to laugh. Max Atkinson writes: “three out of every four displays of approval occur in response to about half a dozen verbal devices” (Atkinson,1984;xvii).

By using well-trodden comic devices, audiences will assumingly laugh at the punchline, regardless of their knowledge to Game Of Thrones, because it would sound like a joke. The joke could relate to the audience in separate way other than from the stem material.

To analyse these ‘packing’ techniques I looked at comic formulas, to find generic patterns of writing to manipulate audiences to know when to laugh. Ronald Wolfe lists comic devices: “Reversals, exaggerations, comparisons, switching, role reversals, surprise” (Wolfe,2003;22). I also looked Tony Allen’s rule of three: “Establish, reinforce, surprise” (Allen,2002;42) to develop material. These helped build my jokes as I made snappy lines which involved reveals, twists and surprises. I built material around the Game Of Thrones universe but connected to more relatable references, for example:

Matt:[Daenerys] has three dragons. One of them is called Drogon, the other is called Viserion and the other is Jeremy Clarkson.

That joke is a surprise as it breaks the pattern of dragon names and incongruously involves a celebrity, insinuating he is a dragon. Sophie Quirk writes that “audiences…understand that the completion of a three-part list is a prompt to applaud” (Quirk,2015;99) and by that logic that joke, and my others, would be funny and unifying. Upon this finding, I made this occur throughout my material, but especially during the narrative segment.

The Show 

My final performance featured formulas, persona and improvisations on my favourite subject, as I put research into practice. It was important to understand why I was attaining laughter: was it my writing or my performance merits? Were the moments which the experiment failed? Within the audience there were approximately sixteen people whom had watched the show, two people who’ve read the books and four people whom haven’t seen the show.

My writing:

I discovered that the more obsessed and nerdy I got towards a subject, the funnier I was, because I was performing the references passionately. Therein lays a two-fold comic response: people were laughing for either understanding the comical use of reference or they were laughing at the persona indulging his greatest pleasure. They were laughing at my enjoyment onstage; shown with the ending of the show, in which I was murdered onstage by men in cloaks (fitting with the Game Of Thrones nature).

Matt: Shit! [Laughter]

Two cloaked men come onstage and stab Matt.[Laughter]

Man: Jaime Lannister sends his regards. [Laughter throughout]

Matt falls down and has his throat slit.

Offstage mic: Valar Morghulis

This showed that it did not matter that the audience did not understand the references to Valar Morghulis or to Jaime Lannister: they were laughing at my obsession, my dedication and the onstage ridiculousness created by the performer. The uninformed understood that this was in the nature of Game Of Thrones and enjoyed my portrayal of it. This showed that the research into bisociation, inferences and contextual knowledge succeeded within my piece; helped by Newman and Jupitus.

In the moment:

I created universal laughs within the show by making instant jokes and reacting to what was happening in the room. Allen describes this as “The Now agenda” (Allen,2002;28). This could be talking to audience, commenting on a mistake or improvising upon an idea.  Naturally, these moments are improvised and they required me to think on their feet.

These ‘in-the-moments’ bits occur in my experimental piece, for example I make people laugh from messing-up a punchline:

Matt: ‘What’s The Wall?!’ Some of you might say it’s a massive plaice of ice which separates the wildings from the civilised people. And this Wall is entirely endorsed by Tonald Drump [titter]. Tonald Drump?! (High-Pitched voice) Messed up that punchline!  (Matt jumps and clicks heels) [laughter].

This was able to gain laughter by addressing the obvious mistake. Not only that, but I utilised my persona to rectify the mistake. It showed the audience it was impromptu and exclusive to that audience, which creates a group unity and a shared knowledge that I had made a mistake. This resulted in group laughter as they engaged with me for that moment, which transcended the Game Of Thrones theme.

Whilst these moments are improvised and organic, I strategically placed a section within the show to specifically bring these moments out. This was the Q&A session, in which the audience could ask me anything about Game Of Thrones. I had planned to make the audience laugh at my improvisation skills and they will be more inclined to laugh as they could see the unique wit. Since it was in-the-moment, laughter would come from the rapidity of the response, as opposed to the references. Whilst my ripostes were improvised, I had to make jokes from the questions that were asked:        

Audience[7]: What’s the name of two upcoming books in the Game Of Thrones series?
Matt: See-Good Question! It is-A-The Winds Of Winter And A Dream Of Spring. (Celebrates) WHAPOO!(Starts singing accidently) I’ve  got… Big Books and I cannot lie?! [Big Laugh].

The audience enjoyed this in particular as they didn’t see this coming, but more importantly and more hilariously is the fact that I, as a performer, did not know what I was about to say. This is shown with my hesitation and the inclination of my voice poses uncertainty. The audience could tell this was occurring, thus they laugh at my genuine surprise when those specific words came out. They saw the genuine challenge in that moment and I played with it, creating a unified laughter. Another example:

Audience:  Who do you think Jon Snow’s father is?

Matt: I believe it is Rhaegar Targaryen [Silent Pause]. It’s not funny but it is accurate [Huge Laughter].

Again the audience witness me reacting to a situation. In this case there was a lull after I had answered the question, ergo I pointed out what was occurring within the moment and created a unified laugh because of it. This honesty to the room and playing the moment with encompassed the success of unifying the audience.

Moments of where the experiment failed.

With my proposed theories on how formulas worked as well as my research, I had an idea of what the show would be like and how I would attain laughter. However there were some jokes which simply were not good. They may have fit the verbal devices, but they simply were not funny. This can be seen with this rule of three:

Matt: If you wanna be a bigger fan than me you have to murder a king, pillage a village and make out with your sister.

In terms of quality control, some of the jokes could have been removed from the set; however I was eager to see whether the verbal devices would allow the uninformed to laugh.  Although this did not create alienation, as it was universally unfunny, as opposed to being funny for a specific demographic. The audience were united in their lack of laughing.

There were moments of alienation, as I tested the audience’s knowledge upon my subject, to test the obsessed fans seen with:

Matt: Catelyn Stark is a lovely person, but if you get on the wrong side of her and she has a bit of a Stoneheart [titter].

This joke alienates the audience, as simply not many people understand the reference, as it is a book-exclusive reference. It does get a titter, as it sounds like a joke. Having prepared for this alienation, I did have something bring the audience back with.

Matt: That’s a joke for two people who have done the recommended reading...It’s not your time you’re wasting it’s mine [Laughter].

The whole show did not fail because of this, as I took a risk within this isolated joke and I was able to keep the momentum going, however, testing the audience’s knowledge proved to be a failure.

A negative effect of the formulaic writing was that it made my performance feel overly-rehearsed. My strength as a comedian is telling life-stories. An area where I struggle is memorising observational material and set-up-and-punch structures. This show was mainly compromised of the latter. Acknowledging this weakness, I militantly rehearsed these lines so I could remember the show, which affected my delivery. I sound relaxed when discussing a life-story and I sound wooden in my observational routines: it sounded like I was trying to remember the lines, and ergo sounded a little rushed and unnatural in the pace of my delivery.  One of Mark Thomas’ rules of comedy is: “This is an encounter not a recital” (Thomas,2015). Unfortunately my performance seemed to be like a recital. This didn’t fail the show but reduced the volume of laughter of what it could have been.  

Similarly, this lead to a couple of stutters in my speech pattern as well, which disrupts the rhythm of the jokes. This reduced the audience to a titter from a laugh, thus creating a negative impact to my show.

On the contrary, my mess-ups (for example my stutters) did not make the show worse but made the show more authentic and got laughter from it. It was an unintended necessity as a counter-balance to the over-rehearsed segments. In the mispronunciation of the ‘Donald Trump’ line, an example I mentioned earlier, I acknowledged the failure, played the moment and gained laughter. Another example:

Matt: Before-I actually came out here, Jack Lock, the first act tonight went:
Jack: Matt-are you dressed like Samwell Tarly?

Matt: (Grinning and flicking robes)No-I’m dressed as Jon Snow.

Jack: No –you are dressed as Jon S-eurgh.

Matt:(Hands on hips)I messed up that joke [laughs]. But imagine it was really funny [Big Laugh]. I think you got the gist of it anyway. But-eurgh: I’m Fat –there you go [Laughter].

From messing-up this situation, I was able to gain more laughs and potentially bigger laughs than I would have gotten from that joke alone. This is similar to Daniel Kitson, whom has a stutter which affects his performances. Kitson occasionally draws attention to it:

“Daniel: Once it had b-been r-r-really really really cold. F-F-F-F-For about a week. You see, quite often having a stutter is quite annoying cos f-from time to time, like then, it will lend undue precedence to a seemingly innocuous word [Laughter]. I will repeat that sentence and I will emphasise the correct word, cos my stutter is a fucking idiot [big laughter]. My stutter has no grasp of grammar-Ey! [laughter] AND my stutter is a racist [laughter]…Once it had been really really cold for a week [Laughter and applause for saying the line]. Don’t do-Don’t do that! Fucking hell -It’s not a gang show- I’m not doing well – y’know? [Huge laughter] Fuck- what was that?!

Audience member: Oh bless him, he’s having a crack at it [Huge laughter] He’s so brave – he makes me wonder what I could do in my life [Huge Laughter]. We’ve all got our demons – haven’t we? We all have our demons [laughter]. He’s got a stutter and I'm a fuckwit- we’ve all got our demons! [Huge Laughter]

(Kitson,2005).

Ergo this shows that Kitson and I do not fail in this moment, but we actually make the show better as we play the moment, and make jokes which are not the ones we planned to put onstage. Rob Deering says “the material is just a means to an end” (Deering,2012) meaning that you do not have to be rigid with your material, as long as you are funny. Through failure, it made the entirety of the room laugh, ergo it could be stated that recovering from the failures, was significant in uniting the audience.

Conclusion

After the experiment, I have observed some key things. I discovered a generic rule of comedy is that you can discuss anything in stand-up. It matters not what the subject is. Anything can be placed onstage and made funny. Katherine Ryan states “everything can be approached in the right honest way…There are parts of anything which people can relate to and can be funny” (Ryan,2014). Regardless of knowledge people could relate to it in some way, whether they we responding to the source material or to my persona. Comedians have successfully discussed more obscure and more controversial subjects than Game Of Thrones.

Overall my experiment was successful. Despite some joke failures, I manage to keep a consistent flow of comedy throughout the entire performance from the entire audience. Not at one point was a demographic truly alienated; there may have been some disparate knowledge towards some references, but the audience understood my interpretation of the references. Through inferences and context my writing was able to succeed.

I feel that the formulaic responses did not work as planned, simply as it did not work to my styling. The audience were more accepting, the more obsessed I was towards the subject- as it was natural. The formulas however distanced me from the material and the jokes in place were not good enough to make up for it.

In conclusion, my biggest finding of the show is not a generic comedy rule, but a personal one. I believe my biggest success with dealing with the disparate-levelled audience was by playing the moment. By doing this, it allowed an instantaneous shared knowledge with the audience which unified them beyond their Game Of Thrones knowledge. This is partly to do with my stagecraft and partly my persona, both of which trump the bisociations and written material, as they create an instant connection with the audience. The writing makes a gigantic effort, but the experimental truly succeeded with the skilled improvisations.

Word Count: 5000 

Bibliography

Books:
Allen, Tony: Attitude: Wanna Make Something of it? - The Secret of Stand-up Comedy.  2002, Published by Gothic Image Publications, Glastonbury.

Atkinson, Max: Our Master’s Voices: The Language of Body Language and Politics. 1984, Published by Meuthen, London.

Christie, Bridget: A Book For Her. 2015, Published by Penguin Random House UK, London.

Double, Oliver: Getting The Joke: The Inner Workings Of Stand-Up Comedy. 2014, Second edition. Published by Methuen, London.

Double, Oliver: Stand-Up! On Being A Comedian. 1997, Published by Methuen, London.

Koestler, Arthur: The Act Of Creation. 1970 (Picador Edition), Published by Pan Books Ltd., London.

Lee, Stewart: How I Escaped My Certain Fate: The Life and Deaths of a Stand-Up Comedian. 2010, Published by Faber and Faber Ltd., London.

Quirk, Sophie: Why Stand-Up Matters. 2015, Published by Bloomsbury, Meuthen, London.

Wolfe, Ronald: Writing Comedy: A Guide To Scriptwriting for TV, Radio, Film and Stage.  2003, Revised Edition, Published by Robert Hale Ltd., London.

Live Performance[8]

Christie, Bridget: A Book For Her. 24^th August 2015, The Stand 1, Edinburgh, Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2015.

Jupitus, Phill: In Conversation With Oliver Double. 29^th September 2015, Templeman Library Lecture Theatre 1, British Stand-Up Comedy Archive. Canterbury.

Newman, Robert: The Brain Show. 13^th February 2016, Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury.

Thomas, Mark: The Linda Smith Lecture. 20^th May 2015, Gulbenkian Theatre, British Stand-Up Comedy Archive, Canterbury.

Recorded Performance

Goldsmith, Stuart and Deering, Rob: Stuart Goldsmith- The Comedian’s Comedian Podcast: 1 - Rob Deering. 19^th March 2012, Itunes. Podcast.

Herring, Richard and Ryan, Katherine: Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast- Episode 46: Katherine Ryan. 8^th October 2014, ITunes. Podcast.

Ince, Robin: Happiness Through Science. 2013, Go Faster Stripe, GFS-48. DVD.

Jupitus: Phill: The Stand-Up Show. 15^th April 1995, BBC1. VOB.[9]

Lee, Stewart: Pea Green Boat.  2007, Go Faster Stripe, GFS-4 .CD.

Lee, Stewart:  Stand-up Comedian. 2005 2 Entertain Video, Avalon Television, 2005. DVD.

Lee, Stewart: 90’s Comedian. 2006, Go Faster Stripe, GFS-1. DVD.

Kitson, Daniel:  The Stand- August 2005.  2005, Bandcamp[10]. Album.

Martin, Steve: A Wild And Crazy Guy. 1978, Published by Warner Bros. Records. Album.

Martin, Steve: Let’s Get Small. 1977, Published by Warner Bros. Records. Album.

Newman, Robert: History Of Oil. 2006, Published by Tiger Aspect Productions. DVD.

Oswalt, Patton:  Finest Hour. 2011, Published by Comedy Central Records. Album.

Oswalt, Patton:  Werewolves And Lollipops. 2007, Published by Sub Pop Records. Album.

Sayle, Alexei: Cak. 1982, Published by Springtime/Island Records. Album.

Sinha, Paul: The Sinha Carta. 2015, BBC Radio 4 Extra. Audio.

Steel, Mark: The Mark Steel Lectures: Series 2: People With A Passion. 2001, BBC Radio 4. Audio.

Steel, Mark: The Mark Steel Revolution. 1998, BBC Radio 4. Audio.
Youtube

Hoss, Matt: Matt Hoss Experimental Comedy Part 1. 16^th March 2016,         https://youtu.be/VphnLoZ4UTU?t=29m30s  - [Accessed 16^th March 2016]   

Hoss, Matt:  Matt Hoss Experimental Comedy part 2. 16^th March 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=untaCgs8JHI -  [Accessed 16^th March 2016].

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[1] Robin Ince’s shows largely consist about science and philosophy particularly: Happiness Through Science. (Ince,2013)

[2] Christie has three live shows about feminism: A Bic For Her, An Ungrateful Woman and A Book For Her. A Book For Her is also the title of her book on feminism (Christie,2015).

[3] Mark Steel has informative lectures on famous revolutions (Steel,1998)  and on historically important people like Da Vinci, Aristotle and Karl Marx (Steel,2001).

[4] Reincorporation gags are explained by Double in Stand-Up! On Being A Comedian (Double,1997;230).

[5] Patton Oswalt does a routine in The Finest Hour (Oswalt,2011) about the reaction he gets from his routine about KFC Famous bowls in Werewolves And Lollipops (Oswalt,2007).

[6] Bisociation is a term coined by Koestler in The Act Of Creation (Koestler;1975,35)

[7] In my transcriptions, the performer and the characters they possess are shown in bold and underlining. Audience are shown in italics.

[8] Each live performance, for the sake of academic accuracy, was annotated upon immediately after each show.

[9] Ideally, I would have liked to have seen Jupitus’ Jedi Steady Go however it was never filmed nor written down.

[10] Accessed through the Bandcamp website: https://danielkitson.bandcamp.com/album/the-stand-august-2005

BORN TO PERFORM Part 2: Hey I wanna be a ROCK STAR (Not In the Nickleback way).

 BORN TO PERFORM  Part 2:

Hey I wanna be a ROCK STAR – but not in the Nickleback way.


BLOG POST

Hello people. We are back for part 2 of my Born to Perform mini-series. Thanks to all that all read the blog last time round. If you didn’t get a chance to read it, feel free to check it out- it’s just placed below this. Just to recap: I am talking about all my artistic pursuits before reaching stand-up comedy.  This blog will entirely feature on my music abilities and when I tried to become a rock god.
It was incredibly similar to acting, comedy and anything in my teenage life, I pursued music as a means to get some groupies. And it was equally similar as I failed to attract said groupies.

Love Music:

I always loved rock and metal and that bored through everything I ended up doing: I always listened to music on the way to school, during lessons and the way out of school. I would be so involved with my music, I would rarely take a moment to remove my headphones from ears when engaging in a conversation. They would be lucky if I even pressed pause.  I loved music viscerally. I loved Metallica, The Beatles, Megadeth, Pixies and Guns And Roses. And the Spice Girls.

I went to music festivals regularly by myself, had long hair and was a mosh-pit aficionado. I went to gigs often. I remember that my year 10 tutor took my iPod off me once during tutor time and I melodramatically claimed that I would never be happy EVER again if she took it from me. She did exactly that and I haven’t felt happiness since. I was deeply in love my music and I dedicated much of my young life to it.  

My long hair shows how much of a rocker I was. 

Guitar Hero:

From my love of rock, I found something which suited both my gamer and my inner Gene Simmons, as I found a game called Guitar Hero: where you used a plastic guitar controller to feign being a rock star and also feigning that you’re talented and popular. You play guitar in time to famous rock songs, as well as joining in with all-night drug romps, fighting your bandmates and disrespecting the roadies that worked for you. I was fully immersed in the game.  I played and I played. I became an expert fast. I slayed songs like Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd , Slayer’s Raining Blood (bane of my life) and of course Through The Fire And The Flames.  I got really good for the games and bought some more, including Guitar Hero Metallica, Rock Band Beatles and My favourite: Guitar Hero  John Cage: 4’33 (a very easy yet very expensive game)*.

I became one of North Yorkshire’s best (and only) Guitar Hero player**. I would rack up high scores like no other. Some of the guys in my year started to hear of my great talent on Guitar hero. For example I got a very high score on Afterlife by Avenged Sevenfold on Rock Band. Check me out dad – I told you I am not an embarrassment.  

“Did you complete Through the Fire and Flames?” hushed the kids at school. Yeah I did- big what? It was easy – I could do it blindfolded***. I was playing it cool to my guy friends, but I would be absolutely mortified if any girls found out – as they might find out that I may have been a bit of a nerd. And I could not let them, under any circumstance, allow them to find out that I’m a nerd. There was no way they could have known that I was nerd: certainly not from my Elder Scrolls themed metalwork in tech class, my Buzz Lightyear Lunchbox nor even my  intricate knowledge of Harrison Ford’s career.  

But one fateful day, I was talking to a girl called Claudia who was trying to flirt with. It was going well; I was charming her (probably with my pre-prepared lecture about Indiana Jones). But then a mortifying moment, a guy called James came up to Claudia and I and innocuously asked me “Hey are you the guy that completed Through The Fire An The Flames?”. I stood embarrassed when I should have been standing with pride.  I believed that he, and he alone, ruined the illusion of my being cool.  If there were to happen to me now (which it won’t because I am a responsible adult****)

But then I realised: I spent so much time and effort into learning how to play a fake instrument, imagine what if I do the same real instrument. Then girls may find it even cooler. THEN I CAN PLAY THROUGH THE FIRE AND FLAMES IN REAL LIFE. From this, I wanted to play guitar for real.

This was the kind of rocker I wanted to be. 

Guitar Zero

“You want a guitar for Christmas?” my mum chimed, “Do you know how expensive they are?” My family were sceptics – they didn’t know how much I wanted to be in a rock band. None of my immediate family play any instruments and yearned for me not too either.

“We know you Matt” chastised my brother “and we KNOW that if you did get a guitar for Christmas: You would open it on Christmas morning, play with it for two months, and then give up”. Then he laughed. Then my mum laughed.  They laughed simultaneous at my genuine plea for a guitar. Because they had given me grief about playing guitar- I thought I would tenaciously learn the guitar and get good at it – just to spite my family members. Not to play guitar for my own satisfaction, but just rub the fact in my family’s face. And that’s what I did, I vindictively learnt guitar.  I’m glad they did tease me, otherwise I would have entirely given up on the guitar after two months, as predicted.

So I got the guitar and started taking lessons with a man in my village called Andy. He was a like a hippy grandfather who taught me my way around a guitar, whilst dressed comfortably in his dressing gown, with a fag hanging from his bottom lip, on a Saturday morning. After a couple of months, I went into the family living room one night to show my family that I learnt Day Tripper by The Beatles. I was super proud of myself as it was a hard song! My dad had just wanted to watch Fred Dibnah on Tv but family obligations deemed he must watch. I played each note in the correct order and expected roars of applause. Instead my dad was annoyed of the price of the lessons after what I just produced. He proclaimed: “12 Pound for half an hour son?! It’d be cheaper to have Paul McCartney come down and play for us.” My family weren’t the most supportive. But they were at least funny about it.

Finally Rocking Out.

I continued to play guitar and I slowly became better, but I put the dream of being a famous guitarist on hold as I tried my hand in another route to being famous. I joined a band. But I did not play guitar. Oh no. I did something I have MORE inexperience at.

Workstation gang. This caption contains free eyebleach. We look like victims on a documentary. 

I became the singer in a band. There was a great time for me as I was able to perform in a group with my friends and I got one step closer to creating a dream come true. There was one drawback in the fact that I couldn’t quite sing. I thought that all singing was being energetic onstage (which I could do really well). No. How did I join the group – well my friends Dan (drums) and Charlie (guitar) decided to start a band and were looking for a singer. I said “I could do it”. I didn’t know that fact. They didn’t know either. Apparently that was enough for the band, and I got the gig.  It was uproarious union.  

We forged history on that day as we decided on the band name: Workstation Deviation. The titans of rock knew that something great had occurred that day. The band title sounds like a bad political rap group or a shit app to play on your phone at work. I thought of the name. It illustrated that we don’t stand for “the man” and we are truly rebellious, whilst none of us have done nothing immoral in our entire lives. We hadn’t even been morally ambiguous. We had just been good little rockstars.

Looks very marketable. I would be a t-shirt with that on/ 

 We rehearsed together starting off with American Idiot by Green Day and Buck Rogers By Feeder.  I was pretty Rock and Roll as I often late for rehearsals. I didn’t do drugs and didn’t drink (I was like 14 years old), but I was Axl Rose level late for things. It seemed like I had followed the traits of all the bad rock stars. Where was my Grohl-esque talents? I seemed to gifted the same rock and roll savageness of The Jonas Brothers, but for a fraction of their budget.  

We played a handful of gigs: here were our highlights:

1)      Our Debut Gig:

One day, Mrs Drake, a Food Tech teacher walked past the rehearsal rooms in which we were rocking out to our 82^nd imperfect rehearsal of American Idiot. She stops by the door, probably in awe, looking at raw and immense talent. She asks if we can play a set at an event later in the week. We were thrilled and we said yes.

We decided to play the song. We were three teenage lads and I believe we were all appropriately terrified. This had been one of my first performances outside of academia or school-time. Something we were genuinely passionate about. The night consisted of our school performers: poetry, some dancers, and I believe we were the only musicians except a couple single together.  We were going to rock the joint. There was a scattering of teachers were at the gig, therefore, we changed the swearword from the first verse. We were proper  rock and roll. Ozzy Osbourne eat your heart out.

We were introduced onstage as a very special  band.  We were pumped. Charlie’s guitar rocked as Dan smashed beautiful beats. We rocked out. I sang through the means out-of-breath saying Yorkshire things to the style of Green Day: “Durnt wunna be an Imerican Ideeot. Bloody heck, get my tractor, my flatcap and my gravy!”

 But I got overexcited  too fast. I was bouncing onstage like Hayley Williams and I accidently put the swearword back into the song. The band was shocked, so shocked that Charlie’s plectrum snapped in two. Then, realising my transgression went full Ozzy and started -running around the stage to incite mosh-pits. My Inner rock demon had been unleashed. Unfortunately, this was just after the first chorus and Dan the drummer saw me venturing to the stage left rapidly, and assumed that I had left and he stopped playing out of confusion.  The song stopped, we were confused and that was our first gig. Has anyone got the number to the Rock ‘N Roll Hall Of Fame.  

The thing I remember, absolutely vividly to this day, was that our head of year – Mrs. Garnett trying to politely give us advice. “You really need to practice. And then practice some more.” She stared at me “You REALLY  need to practice”.

We did well.  

2)      Battle Of The Bands-

All good bands start out by playing at Battle of the Bands. And those bands turned up to play against us at the Richmond Youth Club in North Yorkshire. In all fairness, this was our second gig ever and we were by far the youngest there. Some of the bands there were the sad uncles who were 40 years old and still desperate that their pop-punk band is going to take off at any given moment.

I had brought my family along and to this day I remember the faces of my family’s feigned proudness and illusive confusion.  I had requested that we should play Enter Sandman by Metallica, but we stuck to what we knew- vaguely sweary American Idiot.

I remember finishing the set with glee. We played well together and we had fun. It felt like this was something that I wanted to do. It had a lot of hard work built up to it but it felt genuinely great.

We didn’t win though. Bastards.

3)      Headlining the Christmas Concert

The Christmas concert was the bastion of talent. It was the flagship of fun. It was the last afternoon before the Christmas break, and we were allowed to miss lessons to watch our friends perform.

We were auditioned by Mr Speakman, who was the head of Keystage 3 and also looked like a human Cheese grater, with the temper of one too. He was an intense, abrasive and incredibly grating (especially if you were made out of mozzarella). “Next!”.

I remember we turned up and by this point we had two new members, Jonny on bass and Tyler on rhythm guitar and there were considerably more tensions in the group. It’s as if someone had dropped a Yoko on us. An example of this had been the change in the band name – against my will. We had gone from Workstation Deviation to Socio-Static. What the bloody hell was wrong with Workstation Deviation? It’s one of the best names in rock history. It has angst, it has a rhyme and it has marketability. Will it look good on a t-shirt or a teacup? Yes it does! THEN WHY DID WE CHANGE IT SOCIO-STATIC. It was like they wanted the band to fail! This wasn’t the only change within the group.

I mean does this look marketable?

I don't think so. 

 My musical tastes and ambitions seemed to be different from the ambitions of the group. Because I am a visionary - they were grounded. I was artistic soothsayer- they were trying to fit the lyrics to a beat. I was the Kings Of Leon - and they were talented. Tensions rippled through the group. But we learnt to play Blur’s Song 2 which I did well at because I put lots of effort in it and I had a vivid stage presence which was entertaining. My energetic jumping around the stage worked well with this song.

We were beckoned to the stage. We performed the song – but as I was inadequate with the mic stand. The Mic kept on slipping down. I bent my waist down accordingly. I didn’t know how to fix it. I ended up bending down staring at the ground, uncomfortably singing the words of the song to the floor. It was surreal, but I thought it was the best course of action. The song ended.

“You know you can adjust the mic stand?”

“Yeah – but this is what rock stars do” is the sassy response I wish I had said. Realistically I just crumbled and walked away. But my mic faux pas must have not been a massive transgression, as we got the gig. We were superbly excited, we were going to be the heroes of the school! But unfortunately, snow postponed the gig until the spring term.

After the Christmas break, on a cold winter’s morning the band approached me out of the blue and formally kicked me out of the band. I took it remarkably well, but that might have been the ludicrous amount of smack I had taken to inspire my creative genius. I was totally fine with it- until I saw they still played the Christmas gig with a newer, better replacement of me who rocked Song 2. They rocked the post-christmas concert like the rock god I wanted to be. I was a distorting and isolating feeling.

Et tu, Workstation Deviation?

Like all bitter musicians*****, I then worked as a solo artist for a bit. I could play guitar. I couldn’t sing. But MAYBE I could perhaps do both. I couldn’t do both. Although I did play guitar in my uncle’s Irish band during my university years, which was great fun. But there was a moment shortly after the band’s break up which gave me some inspiration to be a different kind of performance.

I was able to have my own Christmas Concert experience: in the final English lesson of an English Teacher at our school: a hip young teacher called Mr. Smith who had taught my brother. We celebrated his legacy in style with party rings, dancing in a science lab and plugging in our iPod nanos. And I was able to perform a rendition of both Tenacious D’s Tribute and of Scrubs’ Guy Love with an accomplice- Ben. I got up on top of the science counters and started singing comedically and started to enjoy the hilarity of performing.

Here’s what it looked like.

Mr Smith said to me: “You know- I think you would be really good at comedy”. I blushed and said “Really?” with a hint of befuddlement. He suavely replied “I expect to see your name in lights one day”.

The starving artist in me demands that  this moment was the thing which inspired me to become a comedian.  Unfortunately it was not. It would have been a really nice end to this blog, but alas life doesn’t work well for blog conclusions. But the remark by Mr Smith always rang in my head.  

I guess Mr. Smith saw a comic potential in me which I had yet to learn about- but it was super important for me to learn and tame this comic potential myself. I learned that music was not really for me. It suited me well being an Ozzy Osbourne figure, but working in a group, but I could never orchestrate it in the way that I found best. I still do some music from time to time.  But there was another growing passion in my heart, something which I wanted to do so badly.

And that was comedy- the art of making people laugh.

Born To Perform will conclude with the third and final piece: The path of comedy.

If you would like me to play guitar anytime soon, I will be playing in my musical comedy duo: THE LOCK HOSS MONSTER at International Youth Arts Festival in July.  I play guitar and I am a rock star.

Things always seem to work out in peculiar ways it seems.

The Lock Hoss MOnster - performing at IYAF Festival

*That is a very niche joke. Shall I remove it. No I shan’t.

**Christ is he doing this star-footnote system again. Did he not learn the first time. I wish he used 4’33 instead of this frankly overplayed joke. And yes it is the same niche joke I just did do moments before.

***This, of course, is facetious and incredibly difficult. I cried with frustration many times by being beaten by it. This was second to Raining Blood by Slayer which still makes me uneasy anytime I hear this song.

****Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Yeah right.

*****I’m not bitter now of course. I’m totally fine now.

Born to Perform: Mini-series 1- Trying to be an Actor

Hello my blog-fans, blog-viewers and the people that have clicked on this by mistake. I hope that you are keeping well. 

I know that so many people* have been asking: "Hey! What the bloody heck Matt! Where are all your fantastic blogs. You haven't done one in ages. If you don't write a blog soon - I will go bananas"**. 

So I haven't done a blog in months. I haven't done a blog THIS Year. I'm sorry.  2016 must be a shitty year thus far because of it. How exactly been have you been coping without my witty observations and asinine contributions to society ? I don't know how you deal with it without me***.

What exactly have I been up to? Lots of stuff ****. If you are friends with me on facebook, you will have inevitably been bombarded by me on Facebook about the stuff I’ve been up to. Since January I’ve been running several comedy clubs in Kent, I’ve written an Experimental Comedy show about Game Of Thrones, I’ve written my hour long special Vegetari-Man and I’ve been doing a podcast as well (Matt Hoss: Gig Antic available on ITunes – thanks for asking).  

Available on ITunes. The link is at the bottom. #ProductPlacement.

So I thought I would do a mini-series of blogs to make up for this fact. I love writing blogs, I have plenty I have saved as drafts, but I haven’t had the time to sit down and write them. There were some humdingers too. Maybe I will upload them in due time. 

But the time has come. But what will this mini-series be about? As you know, I perform stand-up regularly and it is something that I genuinely enjoy, and I think it suits me more than anything I’ve ever tried before.  It’s all that I want to do, but I used to do many various art forms, like poetry, writing music and acting: all of them I wanted to take to a professional level, like I want to do with Stand-up.

I’ve  always been really interested in performing my whole life, but I pursued many other forms before arriving at Stand-up, So I thought it would be  interesting to look at my process of becoming a stand-up. Why did I try other avenues of performance before stand-up and how exactly did I get here? How did my previous experience impact my stand-up?

So I will be doing a small series of blogs which each focus on my performance history and how they affected me along the way. Plus there are tonnes of funny stories along the well. This series is called Born to Perform. And  this blog focuses entirely on my acting talent!  

Here we go. 

I used to think that I was a pretty decent actor. I always really enjoyed acting and learning lines, and playing these imaginary moments. But I think my abilities weren’t as great as I thought, I never got the big roles, but I kinda got the ones that suited me- as a person. Which in anything, defeats the point of acting - doesn't it? For example, I once played a character in a play called Artist’s Impression by Josh Hinds, called Noel. Noel was an awkward man who was awkwardly in love with a girl and was too awkward to tell her that he loved her. 

I really didn’t have to act too hard.

  

The costume designer asked if I could wear clothes which made me look like I didn’t know how to dress without y mother. I was wearing green chinos, uncombed hair and a purple Spiderman t-shirt. Tick – Mission Accomplished. I always come dressed in character.   

This is similar to a character I played in an immersive theatre company which did speed dating with unique characters called You Had Me At Hello. I played Barry:  a video game player, comic book reader and virginity enthusiast.

Barry was literally me, but with a slightly sillier voice. And the same hit with the ladies. 

I believe I wanted to be an actor for a long time. But I now realise that I wanted to perform, but acting seemed like the most logical, but the only experience of performance I had as a child was acting in school plays. I felt like it was the only avenue to perform. But it gave me great enjoyment as it was an outlet to perform.  

I did find with working as a group, didn’t quite fit my style all the time. I love stand-up because all of the work is on you. You are the single person orchestrating it all and you have total free range to say what you like. With acting you are constrained to the limits of what a character may or may not say. In stand-up, I’m only limited by my imagination. And limited by, y’know, basic hygiene levels and standard levels of decency.

In all fairness, I’ve not been exclusively been acting classy, period drama characters: I’ve played some very obscene roles. Very PG-13. For example I played Xanthius, a slave in the Ancient Greek Comedy: Wasps by Aristophanes. It was a hyper-sexualised play. In the first scene, I cradled my fellow slave friend (played by a lovely man called James Whiley who was severely uncomfortable with this) and my character proceeds to sleep-hump his character. Exhilarating introduction to the show. 

Since we were slave boys, our costumes were just a loincloth. I was very naked throughout the play. My character's costume also had a running visual gag throughout the play. Can you guess what it was?

There is more than one big nob in the photo. WAHEY #Lads.

My character had a very big penis. An emphasis on the “CHARACTER”. This was the tone for the remainder of the play.  

Two of my flatmates in first year came along to see this play, and walked out in the interval. 

It was a fun show.

So what I thought I would do, was take you, my dear reader, through some of my acting highlights. If you are a booking agent, get your pen and paper ready. If you are not: become a booking agent and see above. 

I’ve played a multitude of roles, which I would love to discuss with you in my blog. I’ve had to whittle it down, but here are some of my acting highlights.  

Dr. Chasuble in The Importance of Being Earnest. 

So I performed this in my first year and first term at university. I threw myself at many auditions as I could get. Once, to impress a girl, a signed up a for a Musical Theatre audition despite lacking any ability in singing (despite being in a musical comedy duo at the moment). The girl was worth the potential embarrassment. They asked of me to bring a musical for us to sing along to.  I chose Nothing But A Good Time by Poison (it's technically in Rock Of Ages).

 I gave an underwhelming rendition as I was out of key, forgot the lyrics and kicked over chairs like the rock god I am. It was one hell of a performance, as I bounced around the room, jumping off stage and coughing the chorus when I was out of breath. I didn’t receive a callback. Nor the girl.  

The only part I got, which I was over the moon about, for The Importance Of Being Earnest. I actually think this a monumental foothold for brewing my comic potential. I met some people there who would influence, mould and kick-start my inner-clown. Three guys in particularly who would make a profound impact (Jonathan Maltz, Gersom De Koning Tan and Dan Rhodes) we also acting in the play. The directors helped bring out Chasuble, as we portrayed him as bumbling, loveless fool, attempting to gain the favour of Ms Prism. 

I told you: I never have to act too hard.

If you wanted to take it deeper, the directors (Julia Ripke and Clare Dudley) helped cultivate this nerdy awkward persona, which oozed out of me, but helped vocalise suitable onstage. They found my clown and stapled it to the character. This, again, was unforeseen step towards stand-up and being a version of me onstage. 

The actress playing Ms Prism, Chasuble’s love interest, switched half way through due to  unforeseen circumstances. I had never gotten a kiss through acting. It is the only reason why I took up performing: for the off chance of feigned affection.  I thought if I became an actor, at one point, I would get at least one kiss. I'd settle with holding hands. 

The new actress for Prism came in, and I was  fond of her, So I attempted to persuade the directors that it was my Chasuble’s character arc that he must get a kiss at the end of the show (which he does). Narratively it makes sense. However The New Prism did not like the idea. She particularly did not like me. Ms Prism, once, a warm and flirty character, was changed into a heartless and grumpy person who had nothing but contempt for my character. She entirely changed the character just because she really didn’t like me, which shone through the character. Now THAT IS ONSTAGE CHEMISTRY.

I was electric. The end of the play has everyone getting together, and my advances as Chasuble ends with Prism flatly declining me brutally. It was very funny and  it was a visual representation of what i try and get my stand-up persona to get across. A really fun role.

Creon and Guard #1 in OEDIPUS REX:

Oedipus The King, the play about where the King Of Thebes accidentally murders his dad and banged his mam #Player #Slayer. This was done for my Year 12 Drama piece and I was allowed to perform at the Georgian Theatre in Richmond (which was one of my dreams at the time).  So our class had to pull together and put on a performance of this fantastic tragedy. 

It is one of my all-time favourite tales. It has incest, murder and deceit: it’s essentially like Game Of Thrones but with less tits. As mentioned earlier, I really wanted a role which I could showcase my acting emotions (like kissing a girl onstage).

 I feel a small conspiracy grown against me whilst writing this. In none of my roles I was cast as the lead. None of them let me kiss the girls. But no- I was stuck being the loveless support act- as I played Creon: The Queen’s Brother and right hand of the king. If anything I was jealous of Oedipus. Oedipus was getting laid more with his mother more than I could get kissed onstage. How I yearned to be the incestuous king. Alas I was Creon. I wish I could be incest.*****  

I doubled up as both Creon and the Guard. The only change was how my hair was positioned at the time. Professional.

So in this part of the play, The Guard escorts the shepherd who delivers the shepherd to Oedipus’ palace, delivering the conclusion that Oedipus is actually the son of the woman he is currently married to. However to get the Shepherd to speak, my character had to twist the arm of the shepherd to interrogate hims successfully. 

 It wasn’t a major moment of the show, however a picture was taken at this moment and this is what it kinda looked like: 

This is unfortunately angled photo was published in the school newspaper and heavily commented on about many people who didn’t have access to any of the context. It was simply that picture which was printed with no caption whatsoever. It certainly beats getting a kiss onstage. 

I did find the show as a whole really enjoyable, but I wasn’t at the helm of the ship. I felt like a minor figure in this piece, despite how cool I made Creon be. He rolled a cigarette at one point. I have never smoked in my life.  I loved performing, but even at this moment, I didn’t feel that acting was quite for me (although I didn't articulate it until later. I  pursued if not for a lack of trying). 

But it is nothing quite like this final one:

Gunther in CABARET MACKBETH.

This is easily the most outrageous play I’ve ever acted in. And  the funniest one. Cabaret Mackbeth was  1930’s cabaret version of Mackbeth, featuring drag queens, a pregnant dominatrix and my character called Gunther. Gunther was in a double act with Helmut. Together, we were german Rent-boys who assassinate Banquo by fisting him to death whilst wearing a PVC-Lederhosens.

My drama teacher made me wear this. She wrote the script and she made me wear this. She wasn’t fired. All my friends and family came along to this. It was the last time they came to see me perform. 

But this role was delightfully weird, and it unleashed comic potential. I loved the outrageous nature of it and  loved the developing process of comedy. I didn’t know it, but this was a building block for my stand-up career. It was liberating in provoking an audience into reacting a certain way, by the way I dressed up, by the way I present myself, and by the way i could amalgamate visceral images by saying something onstage. 

I now do a routine about wearing this suit- whilst wearing it onstage. This performance literally made me want to do stand-up. If you want to see me talk more about it (as I’m holding back some nice stories), you should come and see me live. And partially naked. 

If that hasn’t convinced you to hire me as an actor- I don’t know what will. 

END OF PART 1.

Thank you for reading this- Part 2 two will be coming soon!

PART 2 Will be aboutbeing a musician and trying to be a rock star. 

IF YOU LIKE THE BLOG PLEASE LIKE AND SHARE IT PLEASE. 

Also please check out my podcast-  Matt Hoss: Gig Antic as well. Available on Itunes: 

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/matt-hoss-gig-antic/id1076251146?mt=2

* One person. 

** I'm paraphrasing. That's what I reckon they said. 

*** Please read with rolling eyes and a sarcastic tone.

**** Isn’t this awful like Daniel Kitson. It is. Bridget Christie does this too. But not in a blog, so it’s a homage not plagiarism. Which is a rough quote from Stewart Lee. You’re welcome. 

*****Do not take out of context. 

2015: A LITERAL Year in Review.

2015: A literal Year in review.

2015 has been a pretty great year for me. Not the perfect year- no one has had the perfect year. If you have had the perfect year: I hate you, and I will send you online threats and punch you in the elbow. In doing that I will make your year imperfect, like everyone else.

My year had plenty of highs and lows, so I thought I would review my entire year. It’s like a movie review, but with my actual life. I can’t review it all. It would take too long. It would take me the entirety of 2016.  So I will quickly look at some of my biggest events of 2015 and give them a rating.

Hosstages:  Sketch Show

In the early winds of January, my band of jolly comedians and I created a sketch show called Hosstages: Stockholm syndrome which we performed for two successful night at the Jolly Sailor. Sketches included the world worst neighbour (Roger), a sitcom where one character didn’t get any laughs, and an Alan Bennett monologue placed in Mordor.  8/10 (If I may say so myself).

The second show: The Final Remnants Of Our Creativity  was an intensely weirder show due to many reasons, but it was still a fun show. It featured a literal personal demon, a social awkward James Bond and mafia family who are in the REALLY ORGANISED crime business. I give that show 7/10.

I was immensely proud of these shows, but more so impressed with the cast within the shows who really made a dream of mine come true. I would like to quickly thank the following comedians for helping me with their awesome contributions to these shows:

Maddy Willis, Stuart Hosmer-Wright, Zach Cameron, Claire Nott, Francis Murphy-Thomas, Henry Maddicott,  Olaf Galicki, Jonathan Maltz, Dean Hochlaf and Verity Tan. And Blacky from the Jolly Sailor for helping us with the venue - and for his support for Toys In The Attic too.

And a special thanks to Dan Rhodes, my writing partner. Graham Lineham once said “Finding a writing partner is A LOT HARDER than finding a wife. So when you find one you click with, stick with them”.  Together, we are the perfect concoction of stupid.  But I give him 4/10.

Hosstages will be returning in the new year and with a new cast.

Game Of Thrones Series 5

This was obviously a big moment in my year. Bloody hell. As book-reader this series was incredibly disappointing. Many story lines were dumbed-down. Amazing characters were cut. And the changes to the plot seemed unfathomable. But was worse thing about Game Of Thrones this year was the spoilers that people openly post on facebook. Seriously. If you did that you are sociopath. Or a dickhead. Or Ramsey Bolton.

3/10.

My Stand-up comedy

I gave stand-up comedy a big wellie this year. As of last night, I achieved 100 gigs in the entirety of 2015. Some have gone brilliantly for example:

1)  Folkestone Comedy Club in October. It was the opening night of a professional gig. I needed to show that I was a good act. And the lovely audience were full of energy and gave me the love I sought from them. Hopefully I will be back there soon.

2) Fringe’s Got Talent semi-final at the Edinburgh Fringe in August. It was one of those gigs which the energy of the room was thick and ripe. They wanted me to succeed and I had the material to smash it. I also bribed the judge, April Pearson, with pre-requested Chewits. But I had accidentally attached my number to it. And by “accidentlly” I meant cello-taped it on. April really liked it. Her boyfriend didn’t.  

3)  I headlined a comedy club in Deal which people loved. People asked me for selfies and autographs as they assumed I would be famous in upcoming years. And I got a girls phone number. It was a strange gig as I was overwhelmed by positivity and affection, things i'm not used to.

However there were a lot of bad gigs as well…

1)      One gig in Eastbourne was one of the worst gigs. There was no lights, the stage was literally a staircase and the only audience members there was a very drunk man and drug dealer.
But they did enjoy my set.

2 )      One night in Stoke Newington, in February. Some of my friends came along to support me which was so lovely. There were some amazing acts on the bill like Chris Coltrane, Darrell Skipper and Eric Lampaert headlining. Every act smashed it.Then I came on. I thought it would be an easy audience. I was severely wrong.
That was also the first night which Steve Bennett, the head of Chortle.com, saw me perform and wrote this review: “Starting with mixed-results material about vegetarianism, Matt Hoss went off-script – and came off seeming more nervous and unfocussed than he probably is… he certainly seemed disappointed in his decisions.”
Ah.

3)      Jungle Bar, Hertford, on the 30^th march. The promoter didn’t turn up and the only audience members were hecklers. They offered me mental help during my set.  I gave them by business card. 

Overall though, I have to give my efforts in stand-up and my enjoyment as a whole. I’ve poured so much time, money, blood, sweat and train tickets into this profession. And I like to think that it is paying off. I’m doing bigger and better gigs. I’m getting to know more and more people. But I’m still having fun. Its genuinely the most important thing.

But still. B+. Room for improvement.

Winner of The Eric Barker Award 2015

One of the most proudest moments of 2015 was achieving the Eric Barker Award from the University of Kent for being the best Comedy student. Even to this day I am incredibly honoured to have this status. And Olly Double shook my hand. Winner  10/10

Getting a First Degree.

“I got a First degree!” 8/10

“I got a First degree in Classics and Drama!” 4/10

Graduation was a great day. Great outfits, Great company but very boring speech. But my mum got drunk for my special congratulatory dinner.  Back up to 9/10.

Working at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Great experience and a great month in the biggest arts festival in the world. However when youa re working 10 hour days for 6 weeks straight things get a little bit murdery. “Oh- you have an original adaptation of Shakespeare? PLEASE TELL ME MORE ABOUT YOUR ORIGINAL IDEA.”
However I got to see some of the best stand-up acts in my life Bridget Christie, Tom Parry and Luisa Omielan. And I got to meet Susan Boyle. I hit on April Pearson from Skins and was hit on by an BBC egghead on the same night.
 It was a great retrospective experience but at the time was difficult. But it was a testament to a lot of hard work.

And my diet for 6 weeks was Tesco cheese and onion sandwiches. 3 stars.

Mark Thomas

I was given the opportunity to help political activist and comedian Mark Thomas. I helped him with a Loitering Fete and I gigged with him on the same day. I also met Tiernan Douieb (who was an ex-monkeyshiner). I did the RBS way walk for Mark Thomas, where I walked outside the headquarters for RBS in London Liverpool street. I chalked up a 15 metre section outside there building and walked in 666 times to aid Mark’s last show, Trespass , in order to fight London’s private property.

Mark Thomas is the only person I would do exercise for.

Exercise: 2/10.

Activism Exercise: 9/10.

Monkeyshine

In the final third of the year of 2015 could have been possibly the most magical. I was finally accepted onto doing an MA in Stand-up comedy, meaning I would perform at Canterbury’s renowned comedy night “Monkeyshine Comedy Club” on a weekly basis performing stand-up comedy. This is something I have wanted to since starting university and it helped blossom my love for stand-up comedy.
These weekly gigs have gone surprisingly well and I’ve done material about my mum, I’ve started a musical comedy act and there was Pasta Pete. It has honestly been the happiest term of my life.

9/10.

THERE IS STILL ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT.

Pasta Pete wishes you a Happy New Year. He will return. 

Summary

Overall 2015 has been amazing. I’ve obviously omitted the bleak days, the depressed weeks and the heartbreaking moments which interweave itself in all of my days from this blog. But these dark moments happens despite what year it is. Nothing ever changes. You are always going to have a shit year unless you pick yourself out of the gutter. That is why New Year’s Resolutions are stupid. You are letting time dictate when you should do something, when you should be the one making those active changes whenever you see fit. Help yourself out of the gutter and have a great year.

To finish, here are a list of aims for my 2016. Some are funny, some are serious, but I hope you enjoy. Happy New year to you all

Aims for 2016:

-            Produce an spectacular hour long comedy show about vegetarianism. It is called Vegetari-Man.

-           Gig as much as possible. I’m aiming for over 150 gigs.

-            Do gigs which gain me status as a comedian. I’m exclusively ONLY playing at the Apollo for 2016.

-           Be politically active. Campaign for what I believe is right. Do not sit idly by. Everyone has power – so exercise it. If you see a rebellion against the First order - you know it is me.

-          Be constantly giving in Time, Knowledge and Kindness. It costs you nothing to help another out.  Apart from your time. But what is that truly worth?

-           Be academically sound as comedian. Read the books, study the history and learn the truth of stand-up comedy. What could be funnier?

-           Be forever playful – on stage and in life. But not in playgrounds.

-           Have time to relax- it is vital. And how else will video game developers make any money if you aren’t wasting your time playing their games.

-             Make time for friends. I’ve been an awful friend this year. If you want a friend, you need to be a friend. So the coffees are on me guys.

-           Take chances.

-           Help the vulnerable.

-           Become Danny Zucko from Grease.

All these are my aims. I will fail some, but not without a fight.

Thank you 2015 and here is to 2016.

Magna Laughter: An Experimental Comedy night with historical characters

Hello my avid blog fans. I’m not sure how many people read the things I put online, let alone the amount of people that actually enjoy reading it. Hopefully that is everyone on my friends list. Hopefully. But if you do enjoy reading it or if it has any interest to you, please recommend it to a friend. Let it will be your kind deed of the day – but EVERY DAY. Don’t stop sharing it. It’s like a public service announcement but it’s based around me.

My blog today is about something a little bit different. It is less of a ‘blog’ but it is like an ‘informal yet somewhat academic discussion about comedy’. Blog is easier to say by far, unless I abbreviate it to “IYSADAC”. And it is going to be somewhat like an exploration of some ideas which I have experimented with on stage and my reflection of so. It’s like a relaxed academic paper about a specific performance. But what EXACTLY am I waffling on about?

Magna Laughter:

On Monday 23^rd November, I organised a one-night special comedy night. It was sold as an experimental comedy night where stand-up comedians would dress up as Historical figures and perform Stand-up comedy as them. The was plan was to try and establish something different in the world of comedy. I wanted to give the comedians the chance to do something different and the audience a chance to witness something either genius or downright weird. Or both.

It would be called: Magna Laughter. *

(*Well not for very long. For legal reasons – I can’t call the event Magna Laughter anymore. Apparently English Heritage have an event with the same name, and have politely asked me not to call any further events Magna Laughter anymore. I’m infamous. I’m a renegade. I’m a MAVERICK).

The Experiment:

So what was I experimenting with? Answer: Many things – both as a performer and a promoter. My main idea, however was: Can you negotiate with an audience with a potentially offensive subject? And if the experiment went well, I was interested in seeing the flip-side: Could I get them to like the potentially offensive subject?

So the experiment was something that had intrigued me as both an academic concept and from a performance perspective. My character in this, now bear with me, was somewhat (and intentionally) controversial.
I dressed up as Adolf Hitler and acted as the compere of the evening. It was like The Man In The High Castle, but in a room above a pub. It was like a Donald Trump speech.

As I said, I had several ideas which I really wanted to explore when performing as Hitler. Firstly, I wanted to give myself a challenge as an Mc. The role of a compere in normal comedy club circumstances is to build up energy in the room, warm up the audience and support the acts as much as possible. The compere’s primary goal is to maintain the audience and his secondary objective to be funny. Therefore I wanted to challenge that status, making it harder for the audience to get on board with the gig, as the first act they see is Hitler. The Mc acts as the transition from cold light of normal life to the temporary extended boundaries which the comedy club provides. Hitler would act as plunging them into the deep end. How would the audience cope with that sudden shock?

Secondly there was second level to Adolf Hitler. It wasn’t just me playing a dictator,  but I was playing Adolf Hitler, as if he wanted to be a Michael McIntyre-esque comedian. Hitler’s opening line is:

Hitler: So I tried art: That did not work. I tried politics: That did not work. So I’m trying Stand-up comedy to try and take over ze world.

This image will definitely not resurface on the internet to haunt me in years to come.

I did say bear with me. Apart from that opening line, I wanted Hitler to not acknowledge that he was Hitler or had any connotation that he was evil. In fact, I wanted him to have the least offensive material ever, creating a dichotomy between Material and Image. I wanted to play with the fact that I had volatile and potentially offensive exterior but have incredibly inoffensive material.  Just to top it off and give it that extra comedic wallop – I decided to make Hitler use the most Hack material going…            

   

Hitler: “So what is the deal with Airplane food?”

Hitler covered Tinder, Online Dating, Airplane food, the differences between men and women and “Then I got off the bus”. It was bound to be a fun night.

Character Comedy:

I actually realised that this is my first attempt at playing a different character onstage in front of a live audience.  I’ve toyed with a range of weird ideas and characters in some comedic workshops with friends, for example I had once played John Skelton: An unknown 16^th century court-poet who gets infuriated that he isn’t treated like a celebrity. Later in the month I played as Pasta Pete, a man who had pasta glued to his body and face and exclusively told Pasta Puns.That was a fun night FOR EVERYONE. 

Pasta Pete- A night to remember.

I also played a version of a character who was called David Britton, who was a 45 year old divorced Pub Quizmaster who tries to win his family back through Stand-up comedy, despite being quite awkward. Unfortunately David was just like me, but in 24 years’ time. Other than those, in a stand-up context, I’ve always played a relatively honest version of myself. So Adolf Hitler was my first time as a character in front of a paying audience. And Hitler is the first time I’ve tried an act out without any previous road testing. I thought if I wanted to conduct the experiment properly, it should be in front of a real and paying audience.

The performance:

Lights go down, I head to the tech desk. I top-up my marker pen moustache and I call my own intro:
“Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome to the stage – your host”. And I emerged onto the stage.

There was a mixed reaction from the audience straight away. There were some who were confused and some laughed out of surprise. But the audience got on board. They began to warm to the act, as soon as they had cottoned onto the joke of “I’m doing this through a lens of irony” as opposed to “I’m just trying to hobble some cheap gags together”. I like to think the audience enjoyed the different perspective of Hitler. From what I gathered from my audience interaction, they seemed to enjoy the character of Hitler. My experiment seemed to go well. Then I introduced the acts onto the stage.

On the Bill we had:

MC Adolf Hitler
Henry VIII,
Winston Churchill,
Steve Jobs,
Caveman doing DefJam Comedy,
Julius Caesar
and Admiral Horacio Nelson

In my mind, the acts were to stay in character for the entirety of the night. The characters were meant to be naturalistic and entirely in character.  This did not quite go as planned. Irrationally, I believed that the Historical character would perform in total character, but since it was a strange night, the comedians felt inclined to comment upon the absurdity. It would also be worth mentioning that it would be a completely alien concept for the comedians to not acknowledge something happening in the room for a laugh- it’s second nature for stand-ups. So instincts came in on this occasion.

Fun fact: Andy Kaufman, a legendarily surreal American comedian, would turn up to a gig in full character and not break the character until he got back to his home. That’s astounding!

The acts danced around this line of narrative, which was sewn by Magna Laughter, and the comedians brought out their own personas on-stage (and once their own material) in an attempt to gain some additional laughs. It’s an incredibly rare and weird gig- the comedian would be unlikely to be in this situation again, ergo, they feel more inclined to play on the now, to the delight of the audience.

In particular, Adam Morrison-Jones who played Winston Churchill, made his act devoted to playing with this line – as when he had a hat on: he played a loud-mouthed and obnoxiously rude Winston Churchill, however he routinely took off the hat to explain the bit, existentially, as Adam Morrison-Jones. I believe he was riffing his act, but he has such a charm regardless, it paid off massively.

I believe that the acts broke character for a couple reasons. 1) It is a comedian’s reflex to address the “now”, to talk about what is happening in the room at that moment. 2) The venue is in the function room above a pub, which may have loosened the concept in a way, perhaps giving a licence to comedians to play around with the character. 3) The novelty of the gig. Also it probably didn’t help myself as I didn’t explicitly express this rule to the acts. But this was done nearly-on purpose as to let the acts have reign of their historical character.

This looks like a fascist version of Vernon Kay. Family Fortunes would be a vastly different game.

On a personal note, I believe I delivered one of my favourite “heckle put-downs” as Hitler. When Winston Churchill was being laddy and began (comically) shouting at my character. He got the audience to sing “HITLER HE’S ONLY GOT ONE BALL -THE OTHER IS IN ALBERT HALL”. And from my MC seat I shouted in response: “No – ze other one is in your mum!”.

 

But overall I believe the night was a success as an experiment. I was able to portray Hitler in a comedic light without offending anyone. On top of that I managed to piece together a successful gig with a great bunch of acts. The audience seemed to have really enjoyed themselves, but also admiring the weirdness of the gig. It was one of those nights which were weirdly good fun. I look forward to doing the next one.