This is a test piece of writing…
It’s been said many times before, that the most intimidating thing, for a writer, is a blank page.
That’s cobblers.
The most intimidating thing in the world, for a writer, is the audience as it leaves the theatre, having just watched a comedy show that includes pieces you’ve written.
‘Keep your friends close, but keep your underwear closer’.
The audience laughed at that, it’s one of mine. The laughter made me feel good.
‘You want me to give financial support to a campaign to promote teenaged abstinence? Can I say that as someone who experienced being a teenager ten years ago, I’ve already given teenaged abstinence seven years of practical support? They don’t need my fucking money as well.’
That’s another of mine. The amusement rippled around the room. I felt intimidated by the amused rippling, but I loved the clever double entendre. Even if I wrote it.
‘Am I the only person here who feels that ‘Judge Judy’ feels like a command that should be followed with the shout: ‘Guilty!’?’
You could have heard a pin drop after that one. Too sophisticated for Leeds, I thought.
The difficult thing with being a comedy writer is rotating the comedy from inside my imagination, out on to a piece of paper. Several dozen pieces of paper.
My life is a riot of funnies. I am actually the funniest guy I know – and I know some really funny guys.
But getting my native funniness from inside me head to out there, and doing it in a form that’s still funny, is the most intimidating, the most difficult thing I’ve ever experienced.
Just this morning my wife, in fits of giggles, pleaded with me, ‘Don’t make me laugh!’
‘Why not?’
‘I can’t push if I’m laughing’.
She was on the toilet. Having a poo.
You have to agree it takes a special kind of person to make a woman have fits of giggles. Whilst she’s on the toilet.
Having a poo.
Pray do tell… what was the play that you wrote? Yeh, I am nosey.
It’s also a special kind of person who WANTS to make their wife have fits of giggles. Whilst she’s on the toilet.
Having a poo.
Mr V doesn’t tend to come trying to make me laugh while I’m on the toilet. Having a poo. However he did once manage it by falling over the dog outside the bathroom door and then giving him a stern lecture on not wandering about behind people when they were going places.
Annie, there is no play. It’s a test piece of writing, but it might become part of a monologue I have in mind.
Masher, agreed.
Vicola, slapstick humour is brilliant for unexpected laughs. I’m not clever enough to be able to visualise it and then describe it properly though. *sad face*