British Comedy Guide

Why bother? Some good (and bad) reasons to be a comedian

Comedian with thumbs up and down. Image by my best in collections

It is hard work being a comedian. As well as the central effort of sweating beneath the lights, often not really sure if the audience really "gets it" even if they're laughing, there are off-stage challenges too. There are things like marketing effort, recovering from the late nights, getting things done when you're on a different timetable to the rest of the world, paranoid feelings over whether you're good enough, the tedious admin of booking gigs and doing your accounts, all the travelling and delays therein, juggling gigs with a terrible temp job, and explaining to bank managers and parent-in-laws that "yes, I really am a comedian!"

So if it's such hard work, why bother? Good question. But there are many good reasons (and some less good reasons) for becoming a comedian. We'll go over a few of them in this article.

Whatever point you're at in your comedy career,...

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Published: Tuesday 22nd June 2021

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