6 Week stand up comedy workshop.

Are you a new comedian? A speaker looking to inject some humour into your speeches? Or do you just fancy trying stand up for the first time? If so, this is the workshop for you!

The workshop is on from the 21st of January till till the 25th February in Tennents bar Byres Road. The workshop will be from 13:00 till 17:00 every week for the six weeks with a live gig at the end of it.

Glaswegian comedian Obie has been on the circuit for over 20 years. As well as regularly headlining gigs around the country he has also been doing his own solo shows for years at The Edinburgh, Melbourne and Perth comedy festivals as well as his own tours throughout the country. "The entire room rocks with laughter, pretty much constantly" The Scotsman.

Having also been involved in a lot of workshops over the years, his organic way of showing new acts the ropes involves everything from the mind-set to writing material.

The following will be covered in the workshops:

Mind set: How you think about your performance and how you perceive the audience.

Building rapport: One of the biggest things I’ve learned over the years is how to build rapport with an audience. Once you make an audience feel comfortable with you, you can take them anywhere.

Controlling your state: I’ve learned a number of techniques from hypnosis, NLP and mindfulness about how to control how you feel in any situation. This is vital when performing on stage.

Status: How your status in relation to the audience effects how the gig goes.

Developing your on stage persona or comedy voice.

How to write material.

Comedy writing games.

How not giving a shit is great for your performance.

How letting go of your outcome makes you funnier.

This is just a few of the ideas covered in the workshop. Over the day you will get loads of time to deliver your material in front of the class and get to work on improving your set bit by bit. If you don’t have any material yet, thats no problem, we will also help you put your first five minute set together.

Here are some testimonials from past workshops:

John’s comedy course was an excellent weekend. The course was perfectly structured with a balance between time for performing, writing and feedback. The weekend had a brilliant relaxed vibe to it and I have kept in contact with most of the people from the course. My confidence in my stand up has risen a lot since the course and the gig that we did at the end of the weekend was a great success and a gig to remember. John is a very competent teacher and listens to all of the participants and helps them to develop their own unique style and ideas. I would recommend the course for people who are looking to develop their material – it can almost be looked on as a comedy retreat – when else could you spend a full weekend concentrating on your material with professional advice and a captive audience at hand the whole time? For me is was a very worthwhile weekend and a brilliant laugh that I will remember for a long time to come. Thanks to John for all his advice and encouragement, it was invaluable.

Kirsten McCrossan

It was a cracking course and my stand up has gotten a bit sillier since, In a good way. Confidence to be comfortable with silences etc.

Andy Clark.

The course was awesome. Delivery between was strong and relaxed me into being on stage in front of folk. +all us stoodents were relaxed and positive to each other and all grand there. Good amount of times on the mic on day one and plenty exciting challenges with the topical bit, dying on stage, ad-libbing. I think the dying one was more relaxed because I wasn’t expecting any laughs. A good thing as we went through material. The Comedy Workshop was one of the best experiences of my life.

Iain White.

I felt the relaxed fun energy even just meeting Obie outside the venue.

You go on a business course or seminar and can find yourself bored within the hour but by 11:00am I had been laughing so much..

Obie is a very funny guy and was absolutely the right balance between funny, energetic, live wire and informative and motivational. it was a privilege to work with him.

I had often wondered what it would be like to be on stage doing stand up and felt that comedy was something that was right up my alley. So when the opportunity of this course came along I could not refuse and would do it all again tomorrow if I could so guys… let me know when your next one is.

Gar Affleck

Book your place now. I am limiting the number of people on each workshop to 15 people, to allow everyone to get the most out of the workshop. If you have any questions feel free to contact me on 07902841748 or email [email protected].

Host or Publisher John O' Brien