If you have just clicked on this thread then there is a new reworked 5 minutes down below (with elements from this one) that I would prefer feedback on. Cheers, Callum

Note ^

Hi, have my first 5 mins coming up in roundabout 3 weeks and was wondering is some of you could have a read of it and let me know any improvements I could make.

It's a mix audience of children and adults - was told just to do normal jokes and kids will get them but have dumb downed some of the language and included some more childish jokes to accommodate. Anyway, here it is (anything in brackets is movement I will do):

As you may have already noticed, I'm a young person. And as a young person people often give you the stereotype that you're addicted to technology, your phone, twitter and it's just not true. I for one hate twitter. I hate it. And for more strong opinions you can follow me at....

I got into an argument with my friend recently. Note that I say friend because only animals mate. He was telling me a story and when I didn't laugh said 'you had to be there'. In other words 'you're too stupid to understand my hilarious story that nobody has ever laughed at'. I mean, I wasn't at Hogwarts and I understand Harry's story just fine. If you say 'you had to be there' all you're doing is admitting your inability to use basic English to describe a story. Or... your story is rubbish.

Generally though I dislike getting into arguments. All an argument does is make you hate each other. No one's ever come away from an argument thinking 'I can't believe I was so wrong about that'. No, you both leave even more strongly believing that you are right. I'm still adamant that penguins can fly and that it's just not been caught on camera for instance.

Does anyone else walk around when talking on the phone? I can't help myself, it's as if as soon as I lift the phone to my ear my legs get jealous and demand I must move now. I usually just give myself a tour of the house: entering a room, circling and then exiting (circle the stage). The other day I found myself in my local corner shop (bemused expression). You wouldn't do that face to face though would you? You're friend doesn't just stand there whilst you go around him in different patterns.

I'd like to tell you a few things I've been up to lately:

The other day I went to a turtle gathering .. bit dull .. none of us came out of our shell.

I recently got into a fight with a dwarf .. let's just say we didn't see eye to eye.

Someone told me that carrots improved your sight. I tried - if anything they made it worse. (mime holding 2 carrots up like binoculars)

I befriended a cactus but they quickly became a thorn in my side.

One last story before I go..

The other day I was in Sainsbury's
I was queuing with two baskets and a man noticed I had separated the eggs. He said to me 'can you put all your eggs in one basket?'
No? You had to be there

[I'm planning to improvise the last story as that way it will be more organically messed up]

I like the call back at the end, before that you need more comedy in the observations I think, have commented on the one liners before lol

Quote: Marc P @ 20th October 2014, 10:25 PM BST

I like the call back at the end, before that you need more comedy in the observations I think, have commented on the one liners before lol

View original

Haha, the one liners have been tested with kids and work so will stay in at least for this set Not sure adults will react the same but kids attention span doesn't last long so hopefully he'll break the set up a bit

Cool break a leg, your own obviously not one of the kids!

Hi Callum

Needs some major snipping. The "follow me at" joke is quite good but it's not strong enough to warrant the paragraph of build up. Get straight in with "As a young person people believe..."

I would maybe follow that up with the phone joke too as it flows better.

Does anyone else walk around when talking on the phone? I can't help myself, it's as if as soon as I lift the phone to my ear my legs get jealous. I usually just give myself a tour of the house: entering a room, circling and then exiting (circle the stage). The other day I found myself in my local corner shop (bemused expression). You wouldn't do that face to face though would you? You're friend doesn't just stand there whilst you go around him in different patterns.

I like the legs getting jealous line...that should get laughs from everyone. Perhaps expand on the going round your house...there is some potential material there. Spot something new in the house? or see something you've never noticed before?

I got into an argument with my friend recently. I say friend because only animals mate. He was telling me a story and when I didn't laugh said 'you had to be there'. In other words 'you're too stupid to understand my hilarious story that nobody has ever laughed at'. I mean, I wasn't at Hogwarts and I understand Harry's story just fine. If you say 'you had to be there' all you're doing is admitting your inability to use basic English to describe a story. Or... your story is rubbish.

That is good. Could be stronger but for the audience I would expect laughs from everyone.

Generally though I dislike getting into arguments. All an argument does is make you hate each other. No one's ever come away from an argument thinking 'I can't believe I was so wrong about that'. No, you both leave even more strongly believing that you are right. I'm still adamant that penguins can fly and that it's just not been caught on camera for instance.

Not as strong as the others and I'm not sure you'll get much of a laugh with this one. There's potential in the idea but needs to be more extreme.

One liners - like Marc, I already responded on your other thread. I think your stories are stronger than the one liners.

Good luck!

Cheers
Craig

Thumbs up for Craig's suggestions jokes are something I suck at so I won't be of help but do tell us how it goes.

As with kids being your audience I make my cousins laugh from exaggerating body language and tonality and less on the words being spoken.

Quote: Craig H @ 21st October 2014, 9:51 AM BST

Hi Callum

Needs some major snipping. The "follow me at" joke is quite good but it's not strong enough to warrant the paragraph of build up. Get straight in with "As a young person people believe..."

I would maybe follow that up with the phone joke too as it flows better.

Does anyone else walk around when talking on the phone? I can't help myself, it's as if as soon as I lift the phone to my ear my legs get jealous. I usually just give myself a tour of the house: entering a room, circling and then exiting (circle the stage). The other day I found myself in my local corner shop (bemused expression). You wouldn't do that face to face though would you? You're friend doesn't just stand there whilst you go around him in different patterns.

I like the legs getting jealous line...that should get laughs from everyone. Perhaps expand on the going round your house...there is some potential material there. Spot something new in the house? or see something you've never noticed before?

I got into an argument with my friend recently. I say friend because only animals mate. He was telling me a story and when I didn't laugh said 'you had to be there'. In other words 'you're too stupid to understand my hilarious story that nobody has ever laughed at'. I mean, I wasn't at Hogwarts and I understand Harry's story just fine. If you say 'you had to be there' all you're doing is admitting your inability to use basic English to describe a story. Or... your story is rubbish.

That is good. Could be stronger but for the audience I would expect laughs from everyone.

Generally though I dislike getting into arguments. All an argument does is make you hate each other. No one's ever come away from an argument thinking 'I can't believe I was so wrong about that'. No, you both leave even more strongly believing that you are right. I'm still adamant that penguins can fly and that it's just not been caught on camera for instance.

Not as strong as the others and I'm not sure you'll get much of a laugh with this one. There's potential in the idea but needs to be more extreme.

One liners - like Marc, I already responded on your other thread. I think your stories are stronger than the one liners.

Good luck!

Cheers
Craig

View original

Thanks very much for this! I have improved the phone one I feel, I'm going to add in something I notice round the house like you suggested - something along the lines of 'i've never seen the back of the wardrobe before'. I have also extended it to talk about call centres and the origin of dance.

I will also rework the argument paragraph to try and put a few more jokes in.

Once again, thanks for your advice!

Quote: HalfwayGangster @ 22nd October 2014, 3:15 PM BST

Thumbs up for Craig's suggestions jokes are something I suck at so I won't be of help but do tell us how it goes.

As with kids being your audience I make my cousins laugh from exaggerating body language and tonality and less on the words being spoken.

View original

Cheers. Yeah, I have tried to put in some movement in the phone bit as hopefully that will help. I now just have to prepare myself for kid heckling

So, I've done it now and it went alright - wasn't bad by no means but then wasn't good either. Learnt a lot from watching it back however in terms of how to deliver it and facial expressions.

Anyway, I have written a new 5 minutes (with small bits from the last one) in the hopes that I have managed to put together something 'more jokey'.

Thanks for all the feedback everyone has given and I'd appreciate people taking a look at this hopefully improved 5 (wondering in particular whether the new ending works)

Here it is:

As a teenager people often give you the stereotype that you're addicted to technology, your phone, twitter and it's just not true. I for one hate twitter. I hate it. And for more strong opinions you can follow me at....

We've reached Winter now which means I'm firmly in my 3 baths a day phase. The thing about baths is I enjoy the preparation more than I enjoy the actual bath. You put your bubble bath in, start running a mix of hot and cold despite never wanting a cold bath. You then always have the fun panic as you remember you're running a bath cause no one watches their bath fill, do they? You touch the water and a sharp burn hits you as you've misjudged the temperature. After all this and your baths cooled down you get in and quickly become bored as you realise your bathroom is the only room in the house that doesn't receive Wi-Fi and you get out after just 5 minutes!

I think I like the idea of baths as you think they'll help with a bad day. You know you're having a bad day, when you're out walking your dog, your hands are freezing and you realise that dog poo actually makes a pretty good hand warmer. In a bag obviously, I'm not a weirdo! You then have to walk for a while with your hands cupped to get the full benefits of the hand warmer. Dog owners will have the experience of seeing your doq squat down ready to deposit their waste and everyone finds themselves cheering the dog on 'wee, wee, please God be a wee'.

People are horrible nowadays aren't they? I was on facebook yesterday and someone had posted to say their cats were missing. This was immediately followed by '4 people like this'. What cruel person responds to news like this thinking 'excellent, yes, I've been looking for something to cheer me up. I must admit I myself can be horrible. On the bus for instance I will sit on the outer seat allowing my bag to have a sit on the other. I then do what everyone does when the bus pulls up and that's to put on the most miserable face possible in the hopes that people will be too scared to ask me to move over. Then when they do, your shocked that they have the audacity to do such a thing. Because once they've done that they've ruined the rest of my bus journey as I have to spend the time thinking how best to ask them if they could let me out once I reach my stop.

Does anyone else walk around when talking on the phone? I can't help myself, it's as if as soon as I lift the phone to my ear my legs get jealous and demand I must move now. I usually just give myself a tour of the house: entering a room, circling and then exiting (circle the stage pointing out whatever object comes to mind). Imagine the chaos in call centres! You wouldn't do that face to face though would you? You're friend doesn't just stand there whilst you go around him in different patterns. I think that's how dancing started. 2 people couldn't have a conversation standing still so had to dance around (dance whilst saying this. Dance = side stepping).

I appreciate this doesn't actually look like dancing and the reason for that is I've seen myself dancing. No, what this looks like is .. you know when you're in a bad mood walking down the high-street? And somebody walking directly at you but there's no way you're moving for them. Then at the last minute you both try and move but are again in each other's way. Then you both pause to let one another pass before realising and you both try to move again back into each other's way. By this time on a busy morning the people trying to get past you haven't been able to SO.. the car drivers are going past thinking 'crikey, traffics bad today, thank God I took the car'.

Cheers, Callum (this is not apart of the ending)

Hi Callum, as requested, here's some feedback:

1st gag / paragraph - it's shit, drop it

2nd paragraph - You should start with this, maybe say something like "I love a good bath me, on about 3 a day.." And I like the whole idea of baths, but you can go deeper into bath jokes - maybe its like drugs or you're a clean freak or your mum died in your bath and you love sitting there, thinking about her, using her old loofa - just a bit more substance

3rd paragraph - like it, like the idea of the dog poo hand warmer, you could relate this to your warm bath but I'd probably put the last sentence before the hand warmer idea. So it would be loving watching when your dog making his little facial expression; I'm gonna poop, it's brilliant because I know I can warm my hands on that bad boy

4th - cat missing - this can relate to warm cat poo. Something slightly sinister suggesting that you've nicked the cats for that very purpose. The next bit with the stranger on the bus, you can show them your bag of poo - but I also like the last line about building up the courage to ask them to move

5th - it's a nice idea but it isn't that strong as you've done it, I quite like the legs getting jealous idea - maybe 'you're bastard legs should speak / get their own God damn phone calls'. If you keep playing about with and expanding the idea I'm sure you'll find something - maybe extend it; 'I also act out my phone calls, I wave when I say hello, I march around pretending I'm in Star Trek and I'm talking to Spock on my (whatever that device is called). Or I like to act out the conversation in the medium of dance

6th - And that's how dance was invented. This is OK but I'd cut half the words out and your final punch line can be that after so many to's and fro's with the person you're dancing / walking the same way as - you smack them in the face with your luke warm bag of poo.

And like Halfway Gangster said, move around more, do gestures and silly dances etc.

It's all about confidence and being relaxed. If you seem relaxed and act out your material without being encumbered with doubt I'm sure you will do well.

Best of luck for the next gig.

Its funny but don't think you should have the dwarf joke, that could be insulting but I like the rest of it

He won't listen on that one BB!

Quote: bushbaby @ 17th November 2014, 10:30 AM GMT

Its funny but don't think you should have the dwarf joke, that could be insulting but I like the rest of it

View original

Thanks haha.

Think you read the wrong one though as have since removed got rid of all one liners!

Post 8 is the newer one!

Quote: Marc P @ 17th November 2014, 5:35 PM GMT

He won't listen on that one BB!

View original

Haha, yeah I can be a little small minded (ok ill stop with the small jokes) but have got rid of the one liners in the reworked version that I'll be using going forward. Having said that, I was rather pleased with the Ched Evans joke I came up with recently!

See post 8!

Oh yea sorry I hadn't noticed your rewrites. Yes its good and Miky88 has given some good ideas. I can't add anything to that. Good luck with your act

As a teenager people often give you the stereotype that you're addicted to technology, your phone, twitter and it's just not true. I for one hate twitter. I hate it. And for more strong opinions you can follow me at....

As I said before your opening line/gag needs to be funny. It's not that funny and it's quite short with no real connection to the follow on.

As a teenager I am often stereotyped. I'm addicted to technology. My phone, ipad, facebook, twitter. You know what these people are? Old

We've reached Winter now which means I'm firmly in my 3 baths a day phase. The thing about baths is I enjoy the preparation more than I enjoy the actual bath. You put your bubble bath in, start running a mix of hot and cold despite never wanting a cold bath. You then always have the fun panic as you remember you're running a bath cause no one watches their bath fill, do they? You touch the water and a sharp burn hits you as you've misjudged the temperature. After all this and your baths cooled down you get in and quickly become bored as you realise your bathroom is the only room in the house that doesn't receive Wi-Fi and you get out after just 5 minutes!

Assuming you don't perform this word for word I would cut down on anything that isn't relative to the joke. Try to make your topic introductions funny too - don't miss a gag.

Winter is here and you know what that means? Baths.

The thing about baths is I enjoy the preparation more than I enjoy the actual bath. You put your bubble bath in, start running a mix of hot and cold despite never wanting a cold bath. You then always have the fun panic as you remember you're running a bath cause no one watches their bath fill, do they?

This is a bit long winded without any real gag. I like the fun panic and it's something everyone can relate too - I'd expand / make something funnier with that. You could start filling with hot water only, then having to drain the plug and add cold, then having to add hot again, and then just scrapping the bath and going for a shower. Perhaps invent a word for it? A Shath - when you half fill a bath and then decide to go for a shower.

I think I like the idea of baths as you think they'll help with a bad day. You know you're having a bad day, Speaking of baths do we have any dog owners in? [insert small intro gag about dogs and baths]. You know when you're out walking your dog, your hands are freezing and you realise that dog poo actually makes a pretty good hand warmer. In a bag obviously, I'm not a weirdo! Dog owners will have the experience of seeing your doq squat down ready to deposit their waste and everyone finds themselves cheering the dog on 'wee, wee, please God be a wee'. Love the ending

People are horrible nowadays aren't they? I was on facebook yesterday and someone had posted to say their cats were missing. This was immediately followed by '4 people like this'. What cruel person responds to news like this thinking 'excellent, yes, I've been looking for something to cheer me up.[/s]This has been done to death in stand up and I'd recommned dropping it from the set, particularly as it's not that funny anyway I must admit I myself can be horrible. I was on the bus the other day. Now when I'm on buses I always sit on the outer seat and put my bad on the seat next to me. I then do what everyone does when the bus pulls up and that's to put on the most miserable face possible in the hopes that people will be too scared to ask me to move over. Then when they do, I would use an example of an encounter you've had to make it more real and funnier than just making a sweeping statement about it your shocked that they have the audacity to do such a thing. Because once they've done that they've ruined the rest of my bus journey as I have to spend the time thinking how best to ask them if they could let me out once I reach my stop. To be fair yesterday nobody sat next to me for my entire journey home and I didn't even have my bag. I just sat listening to my ipod all cosy and warm with my hand warmers

Does anyone else walk around when talking on the phone? I can't help myself, it's as if as soon as I lift the phone to my ear my legs get jealous and demand I must move now. I usually just give myself a tour of the house: entering a room, circling and then exiting (circle the stage pointing out whatever object comes to mind). Imagine the chaos in call centres! You wouldn't do that face to face though would you? You're friend doesn't just stand there whilst you go around him in different patterns. I think that's how dancing started. 2 people couldn't have a conversation standing still so had to dance around (dance whilst saying this. Dance = side stepping).

I actually like this as it is.

I appreciate this doesn't actually look like dancing and the reason for that is I've seen myself dancing. No, what this looks like is .. you know when you're in a bad mood walking down the high-street? And somebody walking directly at you but there's no way you're moving for them. Then at the last minute you both try and move but are again in each other's way. Then you both pause to let one another pass before realising and you both try to move again back into each other's way. By this time on a busy morning the people trying to get past you haven't been able to SO.. the car drivers are going past thinking 'crikey, traffics bad today, thank God I took the car'.

Very good and funny. Perhaps get some audience participation and have someone walk towards you? would be a nice ending too.

Hope this is of help to you Callum.

Good luck for your gig on Sunday. Let us know how you get on!

Cheers
Craig

Quote: Craig H @ 19th November 2014, 1:22 PM GMT

[i]

I think I like the idea of baths as you think they'll help with a bad day. You know you're having a bad day, Speaking of baths do we have any dog owners in? [insert small intro gag about dogs and baths]. You know when you're out walking your dog, your hands are freezing and you realise that dog poo actually makes a pretty good hand warmer. In a bag obviously, I'm not a weirdo! Dog owners will have the experience of seeing your doq squat down ready to deposit their waste and everyone finds themselves cheering the dog on 'wee, wee, please God be a wee'. Love the ending

[i]People are horrible nowadays aren't they? I was on facebook yesterday and someone had posted to say their cats were missing. This was immediately followed by '4 people like this'. What cruel person responds to news like this thinking 'excellent, yes, I've been looking for something to cheer me up.[/s]This has been done to death in stand up and I'd recommned dropping it from the set, particularly as it's not that funny anyway I must admit I myself can be horrible.[I]

View original

So with the first paragraph I've quoted would you recommend changing the structure a little. IE. Does the below work better as to me it makes more sense.

Speaking of baths do we have any dog owners in? [insert small intro gag about dogs and baths - I will enjoy countless hours I'm sure trying to come up with this haha]. Dog owners will have the experience of seeing your doq squat down ready to deposit their waste and everyone finds themselves cheering the dog on 'wee, wee, please God be a wee'. I used to be like this too but I recently made a groundbeaking discovery and that is that that dog poo actually makes a pretty good hand warmer. In a bag obviously, I'm not a weirdo!

Re: The second paragraph - when you see remove this from the set are you talking about just the opening line 'people are horrible nowadays aren't they?'?
I realise this is a bit hack but couldn't think of another lead in. This bit now had an added callback as well (Thanks to Mikey88's recommendation) and that's that after I say 'What cruel person responds to news like this thinking 'excellent, yes, I've been looking for something to cheer me up' I say 'I mean how's she going to keep her hands warm?'

Cheers,
Callum