Working with Anna Durham

I was on a massive high over the weekend after it all.

I loved it. I really loved it. I was just so proud of myself being able to do it. That's something that I just didn't think I'd ever do. I've always wanted to do performance stuff, not having studied it or doing much of it in high school, I thought it wasn't really attainable or achievable.

I needed the push. I learned a lot about myself. I wasn't aware of a lot of self doubt that I had. I guess anyone would have that with something they haven't really had experience in.

I was only really wanting to do the comedic writing side of it, and so the performance was just like, oh yeah. See, let's see if that's something I want to do later on.

When I was telling friends that I was doing a comedy course, a lot of people were like, “Oh, do you want me to teach you how to be funny?” Or, like, you can't be taught to be funny. You're just naturally funny. A lot of people were fine with me going up and doing it because I do have a big sense of humour. That didn't surprise them. When I was explaining the comedy course, they were like, oh, so what if people aren't naturally funny and they're trying to do it? I'm like, Well, you learn there's devices to it, and it's a craft.

It's a balance of writing and acting to really nail it.

You kept saying you need to practice that muscle because you're not doing it day to day. Your day to day is teaching. So just getting in the habit of writing anything, and the creative block was quite evident with me. For me, I needed the time to practice a lot more. You allowed me to have a bit more time, rather than be like, Okay, it's like, eight weeks and then we're performing. That was really good. I needed that.

I enjoyed the writing side of things, turning the writing into a transcript. I found that a bit challenging but fun. A lot of editing went into that and making it more conversational.

From, I've never memorised something for 10 minutes, to I've never done stand up comedy, to I'm going to be performing it in front of 50 people, then performing in front of people that know me, finding out that I was doing stand up comedy and being like, whoa, okay, they know me as visual art. That was really fun. And the performance in the moment, fucking loved it. It was great. I do love performing. I do love doing those things. But I've never had such a big audience. Just at a friend's place, and you have, like, a little performance that you do. So that was just great. It was so good. And then just getting, like, really good feedback, yeah, was good too.

If I didn’t do the course, I would skip straight to the end. It’s the edits of transcripts, having someone look at it and give feedback, the rehearsal times and then feedback. Being exposed to comedians that have a different style, and learning, seeing the devices in their stuff come through after learning about them.