Posted by Ian on 2009-04-04
in Anecdote
I discussed my cruise ship paradox a few weeks ago. This is another one I have. Why is it that the least paid my show, the more equipment I have to bring? I was thinking this when doing one of my talks to a school recently.
Now I don’t think I’ll be giving away any major financial secrets if I confess that I get paid more for an evening function for a group of company executives than I do for a day-time talk on careers to a school.
Yet when I turn up with all my props for a corporate gig, I just have the one case containing all my props. Given that all of these fit into my specially tailored suit, it’s unsurprising that they can also fit into an individual case. But, with a school talk, I have at least three cases.
In actual fact it’s not that much of a paradox – as I realized just recently at my latest talk this week. I was introduced as someone who wouldn’t just be talking about careers but also would be doing some magic and jokes. Now magic there certainly was; but when it came to jokes, well…
The age group I do my talks for are normally between 16 and 18: so in no way could they be considered anything other than young adults. I’m sure when it comes to language and general awareness of what is going on in the world today, they would be hard to distinguish from a normal adult audience. However, when it comes to the type of humour that works with their slightly more mature equivalent, my jokes just don’t cut the ice.
What they do enjoy is having the mickey taken out of one of their kind – and there they share very much the humour of your average corporate audience. I guess that’s true of any organisation where most people tend to know each other. One has to be slightly more sensitive in a school, however, in catering to the school mob mentality. If everybody is laughing at one boy, it could fall into the category of bullying.
But I am digressing from my abject failure to tell jokes that have any resonance with the pupils. When I say ‘jokes’, I’m not talking about an Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman walking into a pub. I’m referring to throwaway lines that are interspersed with the magic that keep the audience gently chuckling along whilst they are watching what I’m doing. But with schools, there is no such chuckling – just rather blank stares.
The end result is that my throughput of tricks at such shows is much faster. There is no point in delivering supposedly amusing comments if there is going to be no reaction: far better to get on with the tricks. For most of the talk this doesn’t really concern me. It’s only when I start talking about learning my trade in comedy clubs - and that working with the likes of Jack Dee, Harry Hill and Al Murray meant I had to be funny to compete with them – that I begin to falter.
They just stare back at me blankly uncomprehendingly; whilst even the teachers amongst them give a wry smile as if to say, “it’s a good story but we really don’t buy it!”
In any event my paradox is resolved. Devoid of many laughs I just have to shift through my tricks at an alarming rate – hence my need for three cases of props. At my last school talk, the teacher rather kindly said that the pupils “were very tired.” As the talk was at mid-day, this didn’t exactly restore my self-confidence!
Now I don’t think I’ll be giving away any major financial secrets if I confess that I get paid more for an evening function for a group of company executives than I do for a day-time talk on careers to a school.
Yet when I turn up with all my props for a corporate gig, I just have the one case containing all my props. Given that all of these fit into my specially tailored suit, it’s unsurprising that they can also fit into an individual case. But, with a school talk, I have at least three cases.
In actual fact it’s not that much of a paradox – as I realized just recently at my latest talk this week. I was introduced as someone who wouldn’t just be talking about careers but also would be doing some magic and jokes. Now magic there certainly was; but when it came to jokes, well…
The age group I do my talks for are normally between 16 and 18: so in no way could they be considered anything other than young adults. I’m sure when it comes to language and general awareness of what is going on in the world today, they would be hard to distinguish from a normal adult audience. However, when it comes to the type of humour that works with their slightly more mature equivalent, my jokes just don’t cut the ice.
What they do enjoy is having the mickey taken out of one of their kind – and there they share very much the humour of your average corporate audience. I guess that’s true of any organisation where most people tend to know each other. One has to be slightly more sensitive in a school, however, in catering to the school mob mentality. If everybody is laughing at one boy, it could fall into the category of bullying.
But I am digressing from my abject failure to tell jokes that have any resonance with the pupils. When I say ‘jokes’, I’m not talking about an Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman walking into a pub. I’m referring to throwaway lines that are interspersed with the magic that keep the audience gently chuckling along whilst they are watching what I’m doing. But with schools, there is no such chuckling – just rather blank stares.
The end result is that my throughput of tricks at such shows is much faster. There is no point in delivering supposedly amusing comments if there is going to be no reaction: far better to get on with the tricks. For most of the talk this doesn’t really concern me. It’s only when I start talking about learning my trade in comedy clubs - and that working with the likes of Jack Dee, Harry Hill and Al Murray meant I had to be funny to compete with them – that I begin to falter.
They just stare back at me blankly uncomprehendingly; whilst even the teachers amongst them give a wry smile as if to say, “it’s a good story but we really don’t buy it!”
In any event my paradox is resolved. Devoid of many laughs I just have to shift through my tricks at an alarming rate – hence my need for three cases of props. At my last school talk, the teacher rather kindly said that the pupils “were very tired.” As the talk was at mid-day, this didn’t exactly restore my self-confidence!
