Workshop. Writing and Performing Clean Comedy with Dave Thompson & WAFP

It’s tempting to go for the easy option and use body functions to get laughs, especially for beginners. This can limit our appeal, as some audiences and bookers want comedians who are family friendly.

Further, We Are Funny Project will strive to provide stage time to students so that aspects of what they have learned can be applied and practised.

"Early Bird" Price of £75 is available until 1130pm 16th October and then the price rises to £95 "Late Booker".

Sometimes people can avoid comedians who swear and do body function material, but the opposite is almost never true.

When did you hear someone say “I don't like that comedian, because they don’t swear or talk about crude things?”

If a comedian is funny, audiences don’t notice the absence of rude material.

We cover:

* How to find subjects that connect you to your audience, without resorting to the lowest common denominator.

* Encountering the spiritual without giving opinions.

* Harnessing the power of the unconscious to engage your audience on a deep level.

* Divisive and uniting material. Personal versus general material. Conceptual versus “here and now” material. When to apply them.

* Body language, and how to use it effectively.

* Exploring status, and how important it is in comedy.

* Improvising with mythical material, to discover comedy

Being able to do a clean show doesn’t stop us from doing body function material at other times. It does, however, make us bookable for more shows, including cruise ships, holiday resorts, and corporate appearances.

Our tutor is Dave Thompson, a highly experienced comedian who has performed in 43 countries, and was also Tinky Winky in Teletubbies.

Known for his zany style, Dave's written material for many famous names including Harry Hill, Omid Djalili, Ronnie Corbett, Bruce Forsyth, Stewart Lee, and Phil Nichol.

Dave appeared in five feature films and numerous TV shows including ‘Harry Hill’s TV Burp’ and ’The Last Kingdom’ on Netflix. He was in eight episodes of Al Murray’s sitcom ‘Time Gentlemen Please’.

He’s best-known as the actor inside the Tinky Winky costume in the world-famous TV show 'Teletubbies’.

Dave has also worked as a visiting lecturer at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama, and on the comedy degree course at Solent University. He has taught comedy courses in London, Cardiff, Brighton, Atlantic College (Wales), Budapest, Nässjö and Örebro in Sweden.

Testimonials from Recent Students

"I had a great time at the workshop. I'd definitely sign up for another class with Dave - he was great!"

Jakob

"Great to learn new ideas and how to transition to cleaner comedy performance with Dave Thompson in Saturdays "Writing and Performing clean comedy" workshop, also covering persona and status development, with some ultra useful work on body language. A lot to take away and apply to my future gigs, and awesome to get practical performance feedback from a such a well known Pro!"

Teresa B

"I found it very useful. As we were a smaller group than normal I feel we got a lot more than a workshop about 'clean comedy'. We also performed a short set of our material and got feedback from Dave, which was fantastic.

Dave's explanation of the different comedy personas and types of joke was really good. He had lots of great advice about joke writing methods too.

One of the most helpful aspects of the workshop for me was when Dave talked about body language on stage and the signals we were sending.

I really enjoyed the day, it was nice to meet the other comedians too."

Anthony O