TV Warm up

I will soon be back in the BBC studios doing warm up for a sitcom that will be on TV. Warm up is a really odd kind of comedy, as the people aren’t there to see, hear or interact with you – in fact the might hate you. You have to face comedy issues that you probably haven’t faced before and the only way to learn it is – to do it.

 

The audience are there to watch famous actors do their thing, watch them make funny mistakes and listen to thespians talk loudly in a studio.

Their laughter at the sitcom is valued and will be recorded and projected over the ‘funny bits’ that happen on set. That’s why an audience is important to a live recorded sitcom.

 

And then there is me standing there welcoming the crowd in and introducing them to the studio set up.

 

So straight away we have a problem, instead of that famous English bloke the audience have all been waiting to see, I come out tripping over boom mic machines and giant wires shouting “hello people” and they all seem heartily disappointed. The good news is I usually always win them round and end up seeing them at my own comedy shows later in the year.

 

Warm Up comedy is one of those jobs some comedians get snooty about, apparently only the ‘never made it’ comics do warm up, but this isn’t true. Many a famous name started out doing warm up and despite its alleged career connotations I love doing it.

 

It’s a bloody hard job and trust me there aren’t many women who do it. Actors who work on the sitcoms always say to me “You are the first female warm up I have ever worked with”

 

Comedy warm up is so different from regular comedy and is a real skill.

 

Hordes of different age ranges file in to the studio and quite often children are present in the audience and that can be a killer for any experienced comic. You have to make the adults laugh without upsetting or offending the children, I do love the challenge but kids also add another issue to the warm up worries – they get bored quicker than the adults and contrary to popular belief – kids don’t like repetition and sitcoms have a lot of repetition.

 

So there are issues to face!

 

Firstly – you have to accept that the audience are pretty overwhelmed being in a big recording studio, you have to make sure their attention is on the action and not watching the machines slide about the big studio floor.

 

Secondly – you have to deal with the fact they might have to laugh at the same gag over and over as things happen on the studio floor. It’s your job to make them accept that.

 

Thirdly – you must never be funnier than the script and never take too much attention away from the action.

 

Fourthly – you need to explain that the sit com will not be shown like this on the TV and keep them up to speed on the story as they watch video clips and live action that will all come together to make one big story. That can be hard to keep track off and an audience can easily lose interest quickly.

 

So as I say warm up is almost the opposite of stand up comedy. You can’t maintain a narrative with your audience, as there is always constant interruptions, you can’t engage with them totally and you can never get them to invest in any story other than the one behind you that’s being acted out. Tough gig!

 

Having said that I do love the work and maybe in future studio based sitcoms will be a thing of the past as show like 30 Rock and Malcolm in the Middle proved that laughter tracks were no longer required.

The producers relied on the audience at home to be intelligent enough to know when to laugh. Whether or not this is a good thing is debatable as studio based live comedy sitcoms offer a last link to the vaudeville stages and comedy theatre of old.