Help your Kid Become a Comedian

I’ve been doing comedy gigs all over the UK and world for adults and children for 14 years. Comedy Club 4 Kids was originally set up by children’s comedian James Campbell in 2005 who thought it was unfair that children like to laugh but there are no stand up comedians suitable for them to watch. Four years later he decided to pursue a solo career and Isabelle Adam, Melissa O’Brien and I have been running it ever since. Last year we had over 200 shows in the UK as well as our twelfth run at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Over the years loads of acts have worked with us including Stewart Lee, Adam Hils, Josie Long, Nish Kumar, Isy Suttie, Sara Pascoe, Joel Dommett, James Acaster, and Adam Buxton. One of my favourite shows was when Adam Hils and Jason Byrne did a double act that involved Adam getting the entire audience to river dance around Jason while he was blindfolded on the stage. It was completely bonkers and very funny.

Children are sharp at going along with a variety of joke styles and much more willing to go along with silly stuff than adults. The only stuff I’ve ever really see not work were jokes about the UK economic situation, because kids didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, and another surreal act that children watched and thought ‘yeah I’ve already thought of that’.

We run workshops where kids work on new material, have other children give feedback and eventually do their own set at a show. We’ve had parents say to us that their kids have gone from being shy, to becoming much more confident around other people. They also help some children advance their reading and writing abilities.

The children who are strongest at picking up stand-up at our workshops are often those who struggle to focus on things. Allowing children to talk about what they want with the bonus of entertaining people seems to help. Being able to process the things you love or hate, are frustrated or embarrassed by and finding the humour in it is cathartic. We have rules on no heckling, or being mean and the importance of being a good audience in order to be a good performer. Part of learning comedy is working out what works by trying stuff that fails and we make sure everyone feels safe to try out any material they want to.

Check out a show comedyclub4kids.co.uk

Ask them what really makes them laugh and them help them think about how they can incorporate that into their act. Help them work on how far they can take an idea. If it’s a silly story, can it be 10 times sillier, or if it’s something that makes them angry, can they express just how angry when telling us about it. You have to let the children be themselves, and just guide them towards understanding how to edit their material so they can get to making it as fun for everyone else as it is for them performing it. In terms of enjoying themselves, the trick with all good comedy is it should be something that makes you laugh first!