One of the best videos on getting into comedy is Ralphie Mays stand-up master class.

Shot in 2010 nearly all of what he says is still relevant to today.

Notes

I would suggest that you watch the entire video, and take your own notes.

Here are some of my notes from watching, I have tried to group some of them but otherwise it's loosely in order from the delivery of the video

Start

• Hobbyists get in the way of those trying to be serious with comedy, that's why people might not like them
• You do this, because you want to be great
• Write everyday

When talking about minutes

For new comics

• When someone says they have 20 mins, this means they have 5 mins
• 40 mins = 15mins
• "You might have done 40, this does not mean you have 40"

Realities of comedy

• We are fucked up
• You need to aim to be doing as many spots per week as you can
• You should be working more spots to work more material
• At the start we are confident with a brand new 5, then we prevent ourselves from feeling
• You have to live your life to get life experiences to talk about
• Take any acting or any sort of classes that you can (Acting classes, etc...)
• Network
• Go to where the real comedy and real audiences are - The comedy Clubs
• We're the least respected art form
• It's hard
• Don't care about the back of the room laughing (The comics) you should only care about making the audience laugh
• Your job is to make the people laugh

Sets

• Hone your set
• Punchlines, tags, hooks
• Become so good, they can't ignore you
• Opener joke
• Best joke as closer
• Second best joke as first joke
• Smile unless it's your act
• Silence is great
• Don't bring your notes on stage

Young Comics

• Normally your material will be too verbose
• Look at your material and take out unnecessary words
• Make your material as tight as possible

General advice

• When you can't write new material work on what you got
• Be prepared to be disappointed
• There's lots of drama (Stay away)
• There's comedy police (Stay away from them too)
• Hats are distracting, anything that distracts the audience from seeing your face and your emotions that you are trying to display should be removed
• A lot of your emotions are displayed from your eyes, so use them and don't cover them

Don't do

• Don't drink at the clubs
• Don't do drugs at the clubs
• Don't fuck the bar staff (Waiters, bar, kitchen, etc...)
• Don't fuck comics

Pay

• If you expect money from comedy you are an idiot
• You won't get paid much
• You'll do a lot of things for free as these opportunities might potentially open doors, but you don't enter into any of them with expectations of a return.
• You have to work for it
• Get a job to pay the bills

What to do at the club

• Don't get too fucked up
• Stay around enough to network a bit, you want to see what rooms and events others are going to

Cussing and writing dirty

• Once you learn to write dirty you can't write clean
• If you learn to write clean, you can always learn to write dirty
• Most paying gigs will be for clean material, so it's important to be able to write clean for those spots

Writing

• Writing is difficult
• Take a topical joke, and then write the quintessential joke on that topic

The audience

• Lead the audience
• Silence lets them know the punch line is coming
• Your physical delivery: Setup - to the side, setup- to the side, and then punchline to the front of the audience

Bombing

• You will fail
• You gotta have balls, and you gotta live
• You learn from bombing

WHEN YOU FAIL you can either

• Be dissatisfied
• Learn from it

Marketing yourself

• Don't try to market yourself until you have something to market