English/Well-Being Through Comedy

Have you ever written a joke, or talked about a challenging situation with dark humor…only to help you transcend the gravity of that situation?! Or perhaps you have heard some British jokes and are still trying to figure it out?

Well, this group would be a supportive, fun and collaborative learning process.

What to expect? You'll have a turn to read out some of things you've thought could be funny and at the same time, the rest of the group will do a ‘Try not to laugh’ dare, however, the group will applaud you for your bravery with smiles a plenty I predict!

Why the ‘try not to laugh’ dare in a comedy club? As a newbie to jokes/stand-up, it would be very normal and understandable to ‘bomb’ since comedy takes a lot of learning and practice as a real art form so to lessen the actual rejection of ‘bombing’, you can instead think that most people are perhaps trying hard to hold back their laughs

Is there a way of improving my comedy skills here? Although I don't claim to be a guru of comedy, if people fail the ‘try not to laugh’ dare, then remember which punchline they laughed at because that joke was likely rather good! In this way, we can learn naturally but I shall try to also work in some time for us to discuss our own or just my own findings for the mechanics of different kinds of jokes, famous jokes and which joke type these perhaps fit best with and why plus how to create a similar jokes. If there are a mix of natives and non-natives then there could be requests to further explain why famous jokes in their/our country are much loved abd so it could mean learning about the cultural frames of reference that make them work, so we'll hopefully be ‘all the more cultured’ by the end.

How about the tone? Although dark humor is not off limits, freedom of speech has value and I believe that people of all different beliefs should be able to air and discuss various opinions calmly and in a civilized way - I like to try as much as possible to create a light-hearted vibe, where the material we read out is not emotionally raw for us so as not to re-traumatize the reader. If any jokes you hear are upsetting…please mute the volume and take a break and then consider whether it's worth re-joining at any point after relevant therapy perhaps? I will allow myself the same right as I don't know what I can handle eveb though I tend to laugh the most at dark humor!

Again, consider whether your jokes are harvesting too much negative emotions from you, such as hate/disgust/anger…possibly boiling over into a humiliating loss of control if challenged by someone in the group or if you take it to an open mic and get challenged by a heckler.
However, you decide whether you want more than just my feedback…which I'll try to word as positively as possible – be aware that they might not word things as positively as possible.
If I hear any overly critical feedback though, even if people try to frame as ‘resilience building’, I'll ask those people to leave for example, I won't stand for any feedback like this: ‘the first line is utter nonsense, you haven't even tried to remember a punchline in the second and the third line makes me question your mental health.’

The aim? This is a ‘safe space’ to take big risks that could otherwise feel like self harm if it bombs on an open mic when all we might just need as safe a creative vent place as possible. It is also an opportunity to focus on genuinely transcending heavy temporary chapters in life with joy as opposed to anger/hate/disgust as these emotions tend to disguise hurt feelings and so could sustain such emotions. That's not to say I'm against edgy jokes with swear words, but I just feel it's a wasted opportunity in this setting, plus there is more challenge in creating laughs with no swear words/harsh negative edge, not that they're banned.

What's in it for all of us, including me?
I want to be able to hone my own comedy skills/knowledge to better ‘lift people's spirits’ when times are tough, plus my own - thereby creating more of a meaningful life whilst congratulating others for the tough times they've survived and also learning from them the jokes and skills they use to emotionally and spiritually transcend such times through the joy of comedy!