Is she perky enough? Can she improvise? In the second of a series on comedy class in New York, Lisa Tierney-Keogh wonders if quantum physics might be easier
New York city is crazy hot. The humidity is insane. I'm sitting in a small, drab classroom near the East Village with 10 perky Americans and a very large and decidedly sweaty man named Michael. You couldn't pick a more boring room to learn comedy in if you tried.
I am perspiring faster than a pig on a spit. I have just discovered that I flew thousands of miles to attend a comedy writing course with a bunch of aspiring performers who all want to be stand-up comics. They look funnier than me and they look younger than me.
How utterly fabulous, how completely kick-you-in-the-teeth fantastic. As if my nerves weren't bad enough, I am also the only person in the room who isn't taking a comedy improvisation course. And I am not perky. I am very, very, not perky. I feel like bolting for the door before I make a huge mistake that'll take years of cognitive therapy to repair. There is a definite chance I might vomit. That should break the ice.
Michael wipes his big, sweaty brow and slams the door shut, ruining my escape, sealing my fate.
"Okay, 20 minutes of free writing," he bellows. Free writing? I've been writing for free for years. Momentarily, I have forgotten this is America so of course we're going to "free-write" (a fancy title for "write anything").
In the boring, drab room, I listen to the scribbles of perky pens and from somewhere deep in my gut, I can feel a fit of the giggles working its way up. I pray to any almighty being that will listen to stop what is about to happen but it's too late and I burst into nervous laughter.
My guffaws are met with reluctant smiles and suspicious eyes. Obviously no need to work on my comic timing.
Pulling myself together, I go with the flow and I write and I start to calm down and begin to get feeling back in my extremities. I remind myself that I chose to fly across the Atlantic at great expense to learn how to be a funny girl. When the "free writing" ends, we move on to spider diagrams and character definitions and scene structures, and as we wade our way through the muddy swamp that is the technique of writing comedy, we start to learn how to make people laugh.
Within a few short days, we are asked to write our first comedy sketch. Preferably a funny one. No longer than three minutes. "Let's see what you're made of," says Michael. I decide to write a comedy sketch about Jesus's return to earth. The result of an overdose of Monty Python.
That night, as I struggle to come up with three pages of blasphemous hilarity, I discover that what I am mostly made of is blood, sweat and tears, and that trying to write comedy is as easy as quantum physics and about as funny as a sledgehammer to the knee.
The next day, the tension is palpable. Perky and peppy are out. Fear and foreboding are in. We're all in the same boat now, desperately clinging onto it for dear life and dignity. As the sketches are performed, it becomes very clear that the term "dying a death" was without a doubt invented for comedy because where there should be uproarious laughter is pin-drop silence.
Clearly dissatisfied with our efforts, Big Sweaty Michael declares war. As I hear him utter the dreaded words, "let's improvise", I can feel the blood begin to drain from my face. I watch as improvised scene after improvised scene brings the perk and pep bouncing back into the room.
My classmates are clearly in their element as I stand there, trembling, praying for deliverance from my little corner of performance hell.
Before I can feign illness and faint, it's my turn. All eyes shoot towards me. "Let's do the Jesus sketch," they chant merrily and two kind souls volunteer to perform the world premiere of my first comedy sketch. Carefully considering its contents, I plan a quick exit in case there are any hard-line religious types in the room. As I listen intently to the first few lines, I begin to blush. This is pure torture.
Then I begin to hear it. Music to my ears. Slowly but surely, a light titter starts to creep though the classroom. They're laughing. At my sketch. I fight to keep the smile from creeping onto my face and the more they laugh, the more I want to burst with glee. Not bad for a world premiere.
Days later and we are writing more and more sketches. The harder we work, the better we get. I am realising how much I have to learn about writing good comedy. Most importantly, I am learning to trust my own instinct. Something I can put to good use in all my writing, funny or not. In fact, I look forward to it.
Charlie Chaplin once said: "All I need to make comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl".
Oh Charlie, if only it were that easy.
• Series concluded