Can Marc Hogan, a man who’s never performed stand-up comedy before in his life have a successful show at the Edinburgh Festival – all to win a £1 bet?
Well this is it. There are 20 of us sitting in a circle in a dodgy basement of a North London pub with Logan Murray our Jedi comedy master.
Apparently he’s in his 40′s but he looks younger, I can’t see a grey hair on him. Obviously there something in the adage that laughter is the best medicine!
Everyone looks so different, there are girls, boys, young old, trendy, nerdy, all linked by one thing … we all think we are or could be funny…
Logan starts the session by a brief introduction; I have my pen and paper at the ready for his comedy pearls of wisdom.
“I’m not going to teach you how to be funny.”
“Pardon? I’ve paid good money for this!”
“I’m not going to teach you how to be funny, you are already funny….”
“Aaahh?”
“You all have stories experiences, friends, families, jobs that are all different you tell stories; crack jokes do silly voices take the mickey out of each other all the time!
All I’m going to do is teach you to be playful to have fun with stories, words, and even your bodies. You’ll all come out with different stuff, and the end you’ll have a really good 5 minute set!”
Hang on, this course is 3 hours long, 2 nights a week for 6 weeks!
That’s 36 hours! That’s 2160 minutes even if we have a 15 minute break every session that’s still equals 1980 minutes or 6.6 hours of work for every one minute! ( I’m good at mental arithmetic)
I mean I do a lot of presentations I don’t think I’ve ever spent 6.6 hours per minute!”
I start to do more mental arithmetic in my head I’ve got to do a 60 minute show at Edinburgh festival
60 mins * 6.6 is 396 hours!!!!!
If an average working day is 8 hours that = 49 days of solid writing. With no breaks, no cups of tea, no googling.
I mean at most I could do 2 hours and work, well that s 196 days which is 6 months! Which is good (I can’t believe I’m saying this) I could have show ready by July!
Hang on that doesn’t take into account performing? I’ve not done a stand up comedy gig yet…
“Logan?”
“Yes Marc”
“If we wanted to do a show like Edinburgh how many years would we be gigging?”
“Well most people take about 3 years – you’ve got a long way to go before your ready for that.”
My heart literally broke at that moment – there was no way on Gods green earth I was going to be ready! Even with the best will in the world I was woefully unprepared.
“This course does give you an advantage, you’ll shortcut about a year of gigging.”
My heart started picking up its pieces, it could save me a year … maybe I can able to pull this off!
If you would like to find out more about Marc, or to book him for a speaking event please visit www.marchoganlive.com
