Confronting your fears and performing stand-up comedy is one of the most challenging, exhilarating and courageous things you can do for yourself. Learning the art of stand-up masters techniques in connecting with any audience and creating powerful, engaging and direct communication. Sounds kind of tough right?
Well, it doesn’t have to be thanks to The School of Hard Knock Knocks and their stand-up comedy crash course.
Over five evenings (from Sunday to Thursday, 6.30 pm to 9.30 pm, from August 25 to 29), students (aka up-and-coming comedians) will learn stand-up comedy in Melbourne in a way that will give them skills for life. Students will get an SHKK comedy manual, their complementary online course, video of your graduating performance, and lots of coaching from veteran comedian, Brad Oakes, as well as the hilarious Nikki Osborne.
So how does it all work?
The first day will have actor, writer and stand-up comedian Brad Oakes take students through ‘The Basics and Finding Yourself’, with an introduction to the basics of stand-up comedy and the jargon of the comedic industry, before launching students into the deep end with their very own mini-set. With Brad performing stand-up comedy since 1989, you can trust you’ll be in the very best of hands.
The second day’s teachings will be all about the audience and taboos. With Nikki Osborne as the educator, students will learn to gauge your audience and how to recognise and manage taboo topics while learning confidence building/ fear smashing techniques. We know actor and comedian Nikki Osborn loves a scandal, with her Melbourne International Comedy Festival show, ‘On The Spectrum’ creating huge waves in comedy, and resulted in her writing ‘Bad Barbie’ a year later, making Nikki the best possible teacher for this topic!
Day three will have students tackling the opener… that is learning to write a strong open to their comedy set. Under the guidance of Gavin Sempel, who Runner Up at Raw Comedy 2018 and got through to the next round on Australia’s Got Talent, students will also have the opportunity to refine some of their own writing, and learn about breaking into the paid comedy scene, and comedy festivals with School of Hard Knock Knocks alumna, Judy Stutz.
The fourth day will see Brad Oakes back again, sharing skills to deal with the dreaded (or welcomed) heckler before polishing a strong close to students set, prior to their graduation ceremony the following night. The Graduation Night and Performance will see students putting all they’ve learned to the test, performing a stand-up comedy routine in front of family and friends, whilst conquering their fears and performing alongside three professional comedians (Brad Oakes, Nikki Osborne, and Gavin Sempel), to a paying audience.
Graduates in this course have gone on to perform at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Adelaide Fringe Festival, and Punchlines Comedy Club. You could be the next Nikki Osborne, but you’ll never know unless you try!
The course runs from August 25-29 at Imperial, South Yarra. Visit schoolofhardknockknocks.com for all the deets!
