Can a Fringe comedy critic cut it as an actual comedian? Kate Copstick takes a one-week course to find out

It is not for the faint of heart, the Funny Women Crash Comedy Course, writes Kate Copstick

The Funny Women Crash Comedy Course.

We start on Monday with some positively maternal warming up from Lynne Parker but by Thursday, we are tasked with writing a Wonderwall parody in seven minutes. I would suggest even Mitch Benn would wrestle with that.

This quintet of hours – one of a series of comedy courses run by Funny Women throughout this year’s festival - has been pretty much nothing that I expected and many things I did not. It is most certainly not a week of “how to” but I know we all come away having learned a lot. In the interests of full disclosure, I genuinely expected to dislike more. I have worries about the number of courses there are, too many of which are the very epitome of “those who can, do, those who can't teach”.

I am also, or so I thought, rampantly intolerant of women-only spaces. However, I loved this eclectic collection of funny, different women, both leaders and learners, and got a huge amount from the unexpected choice of topics for the workshops. This is an experience that could not, I think, be had unless it were women only. There is a feeling of such security and such acceptance combined with a complete lack of a sense of competition that comedy becomes something different from anything you see behind a mike, something organic, something inviting. The hours are all wildly interactive (and kudos to Emily on the control screen who tries to follow the bouncing funny). One thing that strikes me is that at no point in any hour does anyone attempt to 'top' anyone else. That, in a specifically comedy environment, is a first for me. Improv workshops used to tell you to “accept, and build” and that is exactly what happens here.

Lynne Parker runs the first hour and, although my hackles have an immediate erection when she announces that we are going to “share our journey” with each other, my fellow Zoomers are so immediately engaging and fascinating that the erection subsides immediately.. We pair up for a fascinating exercise in communication that is, announces Lynne “exciting because we don't know if it will work”. It does, brilliantly. By the end of it we know one of us has one boob, another has nine children, there is a lot of autism around and the Americans have no idea what the Women's Institute is. I am also introduced to the concept of “huddle anxiety” We are hooting with laughter, although no one is doing any gags.

“Your biggest source of comedy is you,” says Lynne. And so far, she is pretty spot on.

The second hour is led by Sally Holloway who gives my hackles their second erection as she extolls the powers of confessional comedy. “The highest art form,” she says “It links us all as human beings.” But by the time we are all doing our Zoomy goodbye waving (always with both hands, have you noticed ?), I am considering simply having my hackles amputated because, as we mine each other for our experiences and foibles, and confess to both, it turns into another sixty minutes laughing out loud (four to six laughs per minute is what you will be told is required of a headliner and we smashed it) at no actual gags whatsoever. Turns out Sally has a point.

I am beginning to enjoy and seriously respect this kind of soft-edged, personal, warmly earthy, humour that happens when women get funny in a group. It combines the comedies of recognition, shock, embarrassment and relief and, with ten women stirring the pot, it is a heady brew. The challenge, in today's comedy industry, then becomes taking the group apart, standing each member (as it were) behind a microphone and having them find the confidence of that same funny all on their own. This course has turned me into a massive Sarah Millican fan. Because that is what she does and, alone on a stage, it is much tougher than it looks. Tougher to do well, arguably, than what Sally somewhat dismissively refers to as “just standing there doing pun after pun” (Tim Vine, in case you didn't recognise the description).

Wednesday offers up advice about taking comedy online and, when we get to the showcase at the end of the week, it is obvious that several of us on the course feel happier in video. For the moment, anyway. Sophie McCartney is a positive, energetic guide and I leave with the feeling that the sheer breadth and malleability of formatting possibilities online could – used intelligently – really suit a lot of women whose comic style might not fare so well on the circuit.

Thursday's hour is hilarious for so many reasons. Lucy Ryan, aka burlesque diva Ivy Paige, is here to get us thinking about our physicality on stage. Warm up exercises involving the shimmy, bump and grind develop an extra level of enjoyment brought by Zoom, when Louise pops up on screen to tell us “I'm in a kids' playground so I am going to get some looks”, and our attempts at seductive eyebrows and falling in love with the nearest object to us are high risk for Emma, who is in a pub car park.

However we all join in wholeheartedly, although my eyebrows have not been seductive since 1979. Then there is the Wonderwall parody, of which the women make a generally decent fist. This is another terrific, honest, warm, funny hour and the lessons drawn from it are in evidence all over the Friday showcase.

These four hours – at the risk of being accused of hyperbole (rarely a bad thing in comedy) – have been a life changing experience for me. I do not think the description “Crash Comedy Course” fits it any more than “Funny Old Broad” described Joan Rivers. “Women brought something to comedy – a grasp of narrative – and changed it for the better,” says Lynn, at the beginning of the week. If this week is anything to go by, they certainly have that power.

Friday brings The Showcase and, yet again, Funny Women confound my expectations. Freed from the 'live' comedy format of woman and microphone onstage, only a few of my fellow course allumni go down that route: Naomi Heap, with a terrific recorded set (and the engaging assurance of the primary school teacher) about setting her school class a Zoom scavenger hunt, and chronic insomniac ex-pat Jessica Baldry who delivers live, offering some punchy lines about being Sleepless in Luxembourg.

Performers only get two minutes each – which is a really tough call for anyone, let alone a beginner. Emma Boddy – who has been notable all week for, if anything, her laid back, deadpan style, explodes into overdrive (caffeine, she says, but there is nothing in Starbucks that effects a change like this in a person) on the subject of her own teeny weeny window of tolerance. It is unexpected, honest and funny.

Sarah Saeed ventures Twonkey-wards (with a hint of Klangers) with an absolutely delightful introduction to her spirit animals (a pre-Covid snail and a post-Covid dragon). It is positively enchanting, as is Charlie Cook's glorious homage to music hall and nice girls in the big city. The character and her song come trotting out of comedy left field and she gives it, what we here in Edinburgh would call “laldy”.

We also get a high octane comedy performance from Amber Alert, aka Jo Pitman with a fabulously exuberant parody (in flaming auburn wig, which I cannot help but feel was a nod in the direction of our Professeuse of Burlesque, Ivy Paige) of Phil Collins' Easy Lover. There is a lot of joy here, and that is a great thing to feel in comedy. Still on comedy with a musical bent, Alicia Davison is Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber as The Phantom in a clever, pointed parody that has gasps, giggles and a terrifying portent of what is to come should the Chinese take over the West End. Check her out online, her Phantom mask has had several comedy outings.

Louise Coombs is all things good about the north. She has a bit of an advantage in that, as a radio presenter, she has performing confidence, but she is just so enjoyable to watch, whether talking about autism diagnosis by gait, in video in a small sketch with herself about the lack of useful advice for people on the spectrum or in her brilliant finale (yes, all in two minutes), a soon to be definitive version of a Tom Jones classic “You Can Leave Your Mask On”.

Properly helpful and intelligent feedback for all came from our workshop leaders. I cannot recommend this course highly enough.

PS should your rugrats have reduced your parental ankles to nothing but shreds of flesh, why not get them online for Funny Women's Kids Comedy Course ... at least they'll be more entertaining to have around the place.

Funny Women’s comedy courses continue this week with a crash course for 11-16 year olds. www.funnywomen.com

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

The dramatic events of 2020 are having a major impact on many of our advertisers - and consequently the revenue we receive. We are now more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription to support our journalism.

Subscribe to scotsman.com and enjoy unlimited access to Scottish news and information online and on our app. Visit https://www.scotsman.com/subscriptions now to sign up.

By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website.

Joy Yates

Editorial Director