International Comedy Courses

There is a history of secretiveness wherever craft is essential to a trade.

  1. Intro To
    Joke Craft
    Top 50 Jokes and Components
  2. Joke Craft
    Plus
    Long Form Jokes and Compound Jokes
  3. Joke
    Craft
    Intro to Routines
  4. Stage
    Craft
    Rhythm Method; Comic Timing

These courses are for stand-up comedians.
This is about method.
This is a what to… who to… where to… a when to… and why you try to…

These fear busting and shame busting courses are for the good who want to be great. The course, the book and the accompanying workbook – are designed to help you figure out where to look, what work to do, and how to bring it all together.

I do not say this lightly: comedy is as hard as jazz, but comedians are not yet as skilful as jazz musicians. Meaning… The door is wide open, get in there. Never will the bar be as low as it is today, how lucky are you? You can make feeling; you can create an effect. You can design where you take an audience and get consistent results. Don’t worry about confidence, you don’t need confidence, you just need to start.

These are as short of cuts we could come up with. These courses are meant for you to have the best foundation to grow your act and your career. You may need to do the courses more than once and it really helps to learn with other people. Not only that, a strong community is how movements happen and being part of a movement gives you a statistically greater chance of success.

Greatness is not a destination. Greatness is a state you get to inhabit from time to time after years of mastering and honing your craft. Most committed comics have the potential to be great, and yes, including people who are not the brightest. That’s the great thing about comedy: there’s no barrier for dumbfuckery.

Joke Crafting Drafts

  1. Get the joke down – you can’t do nothin’ with nothin’.
  2. Craft the joke – Another part of the brain; another part of the day – make lists, move the components around, try a different component, add punchlines, rewrite your set-up. compound the joke.
  3. Refine the joke – Is the context clear? Do you know your keys words?
  4. Polish the joke – is it too wordy? Is your angle honed? Are there punchier words? Could there be more punchlines? Is it sharp enough? Does it fit your rhythm? This is where you add your performance notes.
  5. Rehearse it with slow practice, underlining key words and highlighting colour words, add/omit language, experiment with performance and nail timing.
  6. Get it on stage – listening to the audience.

Adjust and start all over again. Because here’s the great thing about stand-up, you always have another shot, another night, you can try again, you can make it better because ‘the best you can do’ can be ahead of you.

Thinking in layers is the most effective way to approach material, each stage takes a different part of the brain.

Performance is an additional layer.

Bringing the two together to make you a well-rounded comic is the goal.

Reviews

“In an industry which is so easy to stagnate the joke craft course has been instrumental in elevating my writing. It’s a super technical course that helps you create habits for success and creativity as well as show what it means to actually work and make a living as a comedian.”

“They are generous and kind with sharing their comedy knowledge with the class and if you are very lucky Amanda will shout at you but it’s because she likes you and cares.”

“After taking Amanda, Jimmy and Abi’s Jokes course I now feel like the Blind Man in the bible after he has been healed and can now see.”

“I sort of feel like I’ve been somewhere like ‘The Priory’ but for a comedy disorder.”

Being in those classes felt very special… felt like I wasn’t in a class but watching a great performance the whole time, the solos and the great double act when performing together.”

If you loved football and I told you that Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp were doing a course for regular folk to be better at football as a player you would do it right? Well these courses are the comedy equivalent.”

“I love how everyone was treated as a comic and we weren’t talking about gigs but about how to get better.”

“Amanda and Abi are a force to be reckoned with, watching them blow the minds of a class (mine included) is not only enlightening but it’s entertaining too. They’re both so generous with their time and insight, I feel really privileged to have had the opportunity to work with them.”

“There are no shortcuts in comedy but there is the over taking lane and it is this course.”

“Insight + learning from this 1 course = 1,000,000 conversations with comics in the green room/car to the gig.”

“I’m learning the real potential of what my material can do when I really perform it.”

“I am so jealous of young comics. I wish this course had been available when I was starting out. It’s enough to make we want to invent the time machine, Go back and apply what I have learned on this course from the start of my career.”

“David Bowie sang “My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare. I had to cram so many things to store everything in there” I think he was talking about how he felt after taking Amanda, Jimmy and Abi’s course.”

“I left each course feeling really positive and empowered, like, if I focus on developing these skills, my comedy will inevitably get better. And this has worked!”

“Amanda and Abi are the Lennon and McCartney of Joke Writing. Catch their course now before one of them gets shot. (and as they are about to go to America, the likelihood of that just increased dramatically).”

“You know that bit in the Bible when God says “let there be light. He was talking about this course.”

The joke writing neurons in my brain are now storming toddlers. I’m trying to get to the tube station and they’re like WALKING? Fuck off walking. WE MUST WRITE JOKES NOW. There’s a pram coming? WHO FUCKING CARES BLOCK THE SIDEWALK LET BABIES BOUNCE.”

“I write every day and I’m able to use a lot more of what I write (rather than just realising it’s asides or funny premises without punchlines). I now have wayyy more material and I can be selective about what I use and what I want to do with it.”

“Before the courses I didn’t touch stuff that worked. Now I re-frame set ups all the time, and this leads to more opportunities for jokes. I’m more relaxed on stage because I know I’ve got punchlines that work.”