Teaching comedy? How dare they?

When I used to travel to Broadcasting House to write for BBC radio comedy shows in the 90s, someone would occasionally produce details of a book or an advert for a correspondence course in (shock, horror) comedy writing!

Even the most successful colleagues seemed to react with fury at the idea that anyone would claim to be able to teach people how to write humour. I saw a similar reaction from a highly successful comic to the mere mention of a stand-up course in London. Whatever the credentials of the tutors, it was apparently always a case of '...and those that can't, teach'. In the end, I concluded that even the most established writers or performers were insecure enough to feel threatened by others being given a little help instead of relying totally on trial and error or being permanently discouraged by the mystique surrounding professional comedy.

In the years since then, the number of books and courses has increased. I even spent seven years teaching comedy writing for adult learning providers myself and I still give talks and workshops for writers' groups (taking care only to focus on markets which I have experience of selling material to).

It was refreshing to follow a link recently from Writers With Humour to a Writers Digest article where a number of established writers willingly gave advice to newcomers. Although it is based on American markets, it makes interesting reading for any aspiring humorist.