Getting the Joke: The Art of Stand-up Comedy (Performance Books) | 
| Author: Oliver Double
Publisher: Methuen Drama
Category: Book
Buy New: £9.99
New (32) Used (6) from £6.16
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 8835
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 196
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.4 x 1
ISBN: 0413774767
Dewey Decimal Number: 817
EAN: 9780413774767
ASIN: 0413774767
Publication Date: August 25, 2005
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
I can't put it down July 18, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
A great beginner guide to the art of stand-up comedy covering all the areas you need to know to get you on the road, from a background history of comedy, to building on persona, to methods on how to build a set, to the importance of getting the audience to like you.
With celebrity interviews, quotes and advice on how they got to where they are now you won't want to put it down.
Interesting and insightful July 5, 2006
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
This book is interesting for several reasons. Firstly it's written by an experienced stand-up / compere, and more recently the lecturer behind a university stand-up course. Whether stand-up can be taught is a curious debate, and one that Double is better placed than most to explore. That he clearly believes in the value of teaching stand-up skills makes him an excellent person to learn from, and his enthusiasm for the subject carries throughout the book.
Secondly, this is the only book I'm aware of to successfully cover the full spectrum of stand-up comedy. While most books focus on one area or another, this book covers three distinct but inter-related elements that are essential reading for anyone who's working in stand-up or interested in it as an art form. Double takes us from the foundations of stand-up, via variety and music hall, to the modern comedy scene. Then he takes us through the mechanics of stand-up, including the process of writing jokes and structuring a set. Finally, he covers the actual experience of performing stand-up. The highs and lows, and the emotional effect of standing in front of a mic trying to make people laugh.
It's pretty rare that you find all three elements covered as succinctly and effectively is they are in this book, and it's a reflection of his experience as an academic and a working comic. But it's also to a large extent a result of the way he's contructed the book based on interviews with past and current stand-up comics. He's obviously spent many long hours with comics, and the book is literally packed with quotations. And by using their words to discuss arguments, and by drawing on their real life experience, Double's put together a very effective and engaging book indeed. It's unquestionably well researched, and as a result carries great weight and value.
I'd previously read Oliver Double's 'Stand Up!: On Being A comedian', and in some ways the two books overlap. But this newer book is bigger, covers more ground, and has more depth than his previous effort. Example: Stand up! has a sizable section on British comedy. In Getting the Joke Double extends this but also puts it into a global context by also charting the rise of stand-up in the USA. So if you've already read the former, it's definitely worth getting hold of a copy of this one too.
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