EVENT ARCHIVES

Women in Stand Up

with Jenny Eclair

This workshop took place on friday 30 - Saturday 31 January 2004 at the Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster

Please click here to see examples of participants' writing from the workshop

Jenny Eclair is one of Britain's most shockingly brilliant live performers, with numerous sell out performances of her one-woman show across the UK and in the West End. In the last few years, Jenny's reputation for earthy high-octane material has spread internationally with visits to The Melbourne Comedy Festival and The Montreal Just For Laughs Comedy Festival. Jenny is also an accomplished actress, and has enjoyed West End success, appearing in Steaming, The Vagina Monologues and most recently Mum's The Word. After completing her first novel, Camberwell Beauty, Jenny has started work on her second book.

'The wildest and wickedest comedian in Britain'
The Daily Mirror

'Britain's most gloriously bawdy and balsy female comic'

In this two day workshop Jenny explored:

What performance issues face women in stand-up comedy?

What happens when women are in charge of the laughter?

'First of all l want to say thanks… for the great workshop with Jenny Eclair.... l feel that l got a lot out of it, and really valued the input from Jenny.'

'…I have come away with such a huge amount of ideas, constructive excercises, confidence, I could go on. I have taken part in a few comedy sessions before but this has to go down as the best. Not just because of the really useful things that I learned but the sheer amount of laughter and each other's company, it was very special. Have just finished writing a whole stand up script, now the next step doing it!!'

'I really enjoyed myself at the weekend and feel it has given me confidence to try more writing for performance.'

“I found the exercise looking at newspapers for stories which I could link in to my own experience or just exaggerate very useful. In fact, I will use all the suggested sources for creating comic material such as holidays, a night out, my mother, palm readers, food etc."

"I also found the exercise in which we were asked to think of funny words was a potent force in highlighting the difference one word can make to a comic piece and Jennie's advice to push one's own character traits very useful and that speaking with a northern accent or indeed any regional accent can sound funny."

MI