Course remarks

Last year, I wrote a series of articles for the Radio Magazine showing presenters how to write their own comedy material but for seven years, I taught adult education comedy writing classes heavily biased towards radio (in those days the most accessible market for freelancers, thanks to the BBC’s ‘open door’ policy).

Daytime courses attracted writers ranging from students to OAPs, with very different tastes in comedy, but we managed to find common ground. Some were instantly successful; a chap now in his seventies, who remains a friend, had material used on Week Ending, the News Huddlines and on TV by Rory Bremner before the course finished (I've never had anything used by Bremner!)

We covered many forms of humorous writing and had some great laughs. One lovely moment was when a lady (sadly no longer with us) with a real talent for comic verse sang a version of My Way on her last lesson, rewritten about how much she’d enjoyed the classes.

But not all my memories are fond ones. My first course attracted a harridan who only seemed to want to write bad taste material, rather like the ‘jokes’ that circulate after major tragedies. She would make disparaging remarks about myself and my clothes or would sit reading rather than paying any attention to what I was teaching. During one lesson, I asked the class to listen to the next edition of Week Ending, adding that I would give them details of how to submit material the following week. There was a sound reason for this: I wanted them to study the show first so that they would not waste the producer’s time with material that wasn’t suitable. My nemesis started loudly accusing me of deliberately holding back information (why would I?)

As the first half-term ended, she got a big laugh from everybody with a tasteless anecdote about a patient dying when she was (worryingly) a nurse. She never returned for the rest of the course; we felt as if a cloud had lifted. I later discovered that she had once made the front page of a newspaper by getting sectioned under the Mental Health Act after reacting in a novel way to a dispute over her housing benefit: by attempting to drive her car through the doors of the council offices. I still sometimes spot her out and about but she doesn’t recognise me. If she ever does, I relish the prospect of saying ‘Hi, ------, driven into any good town halls lately?’ Not that I’ve borne a grudge since 1997…

As the years went on, daytime classes became harder to fill, not helped by the service frequently omitting them from the brochure index. The minimum quota of students required to run courses seemed to increase in tandem with the number of highly-paid administrators being employed so I started teaching evening classes for the local college. These attracted younger students and were fine, provided I wasn’t being bawled out in front of my class by an obnoxious administrator for not noticing that a window was slightly open or being irritated by a caretaker hovering outside ten minutes before the lessons which my students were paying for were due to end.

I finished teaching for them after they paid me (public money!) to attend a meeting to arrange the timetable for my next courses – and then simply reproduced listings from the previous year, thereby advertising some on days when I wasn’t available and omitting others altogether. I sent my boss an email expressing my opinion that he couldn’t organise the proverbial distillery-based celebration.

So can you teach people to be funny? Well, you can certainly sharpen their talents. Adult education employers, on the other hand, just seem to be unintentionally comical.

(Reprinted from the Radio Magazine Issue 833, 26 March 2008)

Continuing on this theme of teaching comedy, I must just add that I thought the booklet about writing comedy which came free with the Guardian last week was excellent. There were a number of big-name contributors, the majority of it being a tutorial by Richard Herring. (and yes, it was mostly written by Richard Herring!)I predict numerous 'Wanted' appeals and copies of this freebie changing hands on eBay in the months to come. On the other hand, you could just read it here!

For those who prefer something longer, I think this is the best British book:



And here is a good US comedy writing manual: